Chapter 26 #2
I don’t know what to say except, “Alexus has never experienced ‘nary a care,’ you know this. Have some faith in him. And, as I said, we don’t know for certain what happened between them.
I only said I felt their desire and passion.
I’m not a seer like Raina. It could’ve been a simple kiss.
That could be all it took to send Alexus into a spiral.
God forbid he actually let himself feel something for a woman. ”
I don’t know the details, though I do know it wasn’t a simple kiss, but I’m not telling Colden that. Of all people, he has the right to care if Alexus is careless with his safety.
“We have larger worries than Alexus’s and Raina’s sex life, no?” I add.
Colden cuts me a pointed look. “Yes, fine. On to my next concern. What if things are worse than you know? What if you can’t see everything?
What if warriors are on their way down Winter Road as we speak?
” He gestures toward the conference table and the map.
“You’re worn out. It has to be getting harder to know what’s happening across that forest at all times. ”
I swallow hard. My courage to lie to my king withers inside me like a dying flower underneath that dark gaze, but I quickly revive it. If I tell him just how hard it’s becoming, or what’s really happening inside that construct, I fear nothing will hold him here.
Slowly, I sit up and begin buttoning my shirt with steadier hands.
I’m still dizzy but cooler, which has stopped the world from spinning.
“I sense enough. I know I need to keep the snow falling because bands of soldiers still roam the stretch of land between Raina and Alexus and Winter Road. I also know that Alexus holds sway over the wolves in the area, so I don’t have to worry about that.
I know there’s a wraith I’d like to destroy, and I know I have a prince and his army to prevent from leaving the construct.
” I pour and drink another glass of water, relishing the cold liquid on my parched throat.
“You being worried that I’m going to fail isn’t helping anything. ”
Colden tosses back another shot of whiskey, then pushes off the liquor cabinet and drops onto the settee beside me. “Can I be honest?”
“Always,” I answer, guilt swirling around the words I’m not saying.
“It isn’t that I think you’re going to fail.
It’s that I believe no one can endure what you are for this long and not end up hurt.
And I won’t be able to live with myself if anything happens to you.
” He rests his hand on my knee and holds tight.
“You want to protect everyone, but we all have a role to play. And I meant what I said the other day. I know the prince better than you think. Perhaps he will listen to me.”
I can only gape at him. “Listen? You think he’s here to talk niceties?
Are you mad?” I turn on the settee, facing Colden square on.
“His hunger for violence is so strong that its vibrations are palpable from dozens of miles away. His heart and soul are far darker than that wraith ever imagined being.”
“He wasn’t always like this.” A muscle shifts in his jaw, and I pity him for the war raging inside him over this man, even if I don’t understand it.
I’ve spent the last eight years with Colden, and I recall only a few mentions of his time at Shara Palace with the prince.
He never elaborated on those days some thirty years past, but he always spoke of the prince with a sense of faded nostalgia.
It made me wonder how he could possess even a drop of fondness for a man who was capable of following in the bloody footsteps of every eastern ruler before him.
“Just because the prince wasn’t cruel when you knew him doesn’t mean a shred of decency exists in him now,” I say.
“He wants this fight. You want to defuse the situation. And that is what will get you captured or killed if you do something foolish like trying to reason with this man. I need you here, helping me, because the battle with the prince is—”
I go rigid, my words clogging my throat.
Colden narrows his eyes at my sudden silence. “The battle with the prince is what?”
Gods, the last thing I want to do is tell him the truth. The chances that it will end well are not good.
“Nothing. It’s nothing.” I stand, still weak, my knees shaking as I move to the hearth, my arms folded across my middle. I know I have to tell him. It’s been eating at me all day. He has to know. The village has to know.
Everyone has been preparing to protect the village wall and the castle within. But they need to know the time is drawing closer when they’ll actually have to defend.
Colden comes to stand beside me, leaning his forearm on the mantle, his beautiful face inches from mine. “You know, I can read you just as well as you can read me. The battle with the prince is what, Nephele? I’m not going to let this go until you tell me.”
My stomach twists with indecision. I turn away from him, facing the window and the snowy world beyond as tears sting my eyes.
“Colden, please don’t.”
He takes my arm by the elbow and turns me around, hands on my waist as he stares deep into my eyes.
“Whatever you’re hiding, I need to know, Nephele. I’m the king of the Northlands. For Loria’s sake, woman, let me be that man. Trust me to be that man.” His voice is more serious than I’ve heard in a long time.
“I do trust you.” Tears streak down my cheeks. “More than anyone. I’m just scared.”
He shakes his head, his voice gentle. “You can’t be. If you believe in me like I believe in you, then you know we’re going to be just fine.”
I don’t know that, but I do know he won’t allow me to lie any longer.
“The prince and his army are nearing the edge of the construct,” I finally confess.
“They’re beyond the ravine. They slipped past when everything happened with Helena and the wraith.
I don’t know exactly what magick they have in their band, but it’s powerful, and I won’t be able to hold the construct if they fight it from within like they did early on.
I’m too weak now. The entire construct is unstable.
I feel it trembling sometimes. I’d hoped to come up with a way to stop the prince before he and his warriors made it this far up Winter Road.
Sentient trees. Vines. Rumbling earth. But I need my strength to perform such magick, and lately, keeping everyone alive has taken all the strength I have. ”
Colden clasps my face, his eyes tender. “You should’ve told me.”
“I know. But I also knew that, if I did, you’d want to go to him more than ever, no matter that he’s here to collect you as a pawn in his political games. And I will die before I let him hurt you.”
As the deepest ache settles inside my heart for my closest friend, he kisses me softly and wraps me in his arms. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says.
“We face this together. All I ask is that you let me handle the prince when he gets here.” He draws back and looks me in the eyes.
“I need that concession, Nephele. He’s mine. Promise me.”
The same pain that lived on his face the last time we argued about the prince haunts his voice, like it’s infecting him.
To ease him, I press a kiss to his mouth and whisper, “You have my word.”
I just hope I can follow through when the time comes.