CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE #2
My lungs restricted to the point of agony. “You did,” I stalled. “But I… I thought you knew exactly who they were. That was why you selected them. For punishment.”
He ran a hand across the stubble along his jaw.
“That’s not entirely true. I only heard whispers of who and why.
Mostly rumors, muddled amongst court gossip.
I was hoping they would make it more obvious throughout the trials.
Once their identities are revealed, I can find who they’re connected to.
” He paused, eyes going distant. “Weed out the bad roots before they can grow.”
Heart hammering steadily in my chest, I thought of my allies, still sequestered in the tower.
Then immediately chased the thought away, smudging the details from my mind as though they were a variety of mismatched paint colors.
Only an ugly cloud of grey remained. I forced the tremor out of my hands by laying them flat onto the balcony rail.
This was a dangerous game. But I realized that my choice was made. Had already been made since the moment I sat at that table.
There was no turning back now.
Breathing in slowly, I attempted my best look of nonchalance and gazed up at the colorful flashes of light above our heads. Anything to keep my mind occupied.
“You’re meaning to tell me you selected this year’s competitors on a gamble?” I was stalling. Again. Trying to find the best way to keep my allies safe without lying too obviously. I owed them that much.
“Not all of them.” He gave me a half smile, like he’d shared something funny.
Something only I would understand. It faded a little when I failed to reciprocate it.
“I might have the final word, but all of those among you chose to partake in the trials, Eloise. Even those who are innocent. Remember that.”
It didn’t make it any easier to stomach.
“Why are you telling me all of this?”
“Don’t cheat. You owe me at least one answer now. Just like you owe me from our last game of cards. And from that one occasion where I let you have the last berry tart. Should I begin writing an official list?” He playfully nudged my arm with his.
The small smile that tugged at my lips was genuine.
That was Maverick, the one that was easy to laugh with.
The one that remembered all my birthdays and whose embrace felt like the only home I’d ever lived in.
Not King Maverick. The one that held my Maverick hostage with a crown that could slice you open at will.
Millions of excuses threatened to spill from my lips, though none of them adequate to hide the truth from his sharp mind.
“No. I haven’t found them.” A monumental lie. But a simple one. No layers for him to pick apart. No stories for me to remember and act on later.
He hummed in what could have been disappointment, but I felt his stare burning into the side of my temple. “Have you heard anything worthy of note? Seen anyone behave strangely?” he pressed.
I made a show of admiring the twinkling lights of the kingdom. Pretended to be fascinated with them. “Who is trying to cheat now, I wonder?” I tutted. “It’s your turn to owe me an answer.”
He laughed softly. “Is it?” he reached to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, his knuckles lingering by my cheek. “Must’ve slipped my mind.”
I’d seen many people imprisoned for asking less of him. And yet, with me, on this balcony, he was laughing. Teasing.
“Look at me.”
Goosebumps came to life along my arms.
I wasn’t foolish enough to disobey. Not now. Not when this moment teetered on an edge I was terrified to fall from. I turned to face him, tilting my chin up to meet his gaze unflinchingly.
His knuckles ghosted down my cheek to the line of my collarbone. Drifted along my side, stopping at my waist. He tugged on my skirts. It was only the slightest of movements, but it was enough. Enough to pull me closer, to bridge the already inexistant distance between our bodies.
His dark, depthless eyes bore into mine. And there wasn’t any amount of training that could keep my heart from threatening to burst out of my chest. If he didn’t feel it, with the way our chests were pressed against one another, at the very least, he had to hear it.
A barely noticeable weight formed atop my head as those twin pits of night flickered down to my lips once again. I wasn’t thinking anymore. Wasn’t breathing.
His hold around my waist shifted slightly, his fingers splaying across my lower back while his eyes dragged back upwards, snagging on my right iris before landing on what rested on my head.
The ground beneath our feet had opened, cracking into a yawning chasm. And I was falling through it, endlessly.
By the grace of the stars, my hands were steady as I reached up and plucked the item from my head. A crown.
Made from spirals of white gold embezzled with sparkling amethyst crystals and shards of onyx woven into its center. There weren’t enough words to describe how magnificent it was, how precise the details were.
It was a crown fit for a queen.
The idea of speaking became something foreign. All of my thoughts were scattered mist. I could only gape at him.
“You want power?” Maverick asked softly. “Complete the last trial. Return from the Temple of Borealis, and it is yours.”
“You cannot truly mean that.”
I shoved the crown at him like it burned. He made no move to take it. We remained frozen that way, my arms barely outstretched, him ignoring the crown pressing against his chest. He didn’t even look at it.
“I am a man of my word, Eloise.”
“You’re toying with my head, like you did with Courage,” I accused. “Stars, just how far will you go?”
He moved then, wrapping his hands around my wrists. But he didn’t push them, or the crown, away.
“I know I’ve hurt you. Deeply. You can be angry with me for a thousand years if that’s what you wish, because you’ll have them.
And no harm will ever come to you again if you choose to accept it.
” The gravity of his offer settled in my stomach like a handful of jagged stones.
“With this, you would have power like you’ve never imagined. ”
A thousand years. Did he mean to share his gods-given power alongside the crown? That my lifespan would lengthen alongside his? His head dipped, and suddenly our noses were a hairsbreadth away from touching. Any closer, and one might think he was about to kiss me.
A catastrophe in the making. The stars above our heads held their breath. Waited to lift their batons like microscopic conductors.
“This could give you so much more. I could give you so much more.” His attention flickered to the sky, forever painted by night.
“I have sat on my throne, alone, for so long that I do not remember where my crown ends, and I begin.” His pain was mine.
My heart was drenched in it. “Power requires balance. I trust that you, and only you, could bring that balance.”
“I don’t know the first thing about wielding magic. Especially not the kind you would expect me to master. The gods would never accept it.”
“I would teach you myself. And never mind the gods. I could show you how to wield magic in a way that would make them tremble at your feet.” That dangerous glint in his eyes flashed again, gone before I could blink.
Replaced with an almost child-like excitement, one that lit up his face so spectacularly that I found it difficult to remember why I questioned his reasoning to begin with.
“Never mind the gods,” I echoed. “That isn’t possible. Not where I’m concerned.”
“I will make it possible.”
“Why?”
“Why, what?” he all but grumbled. As if I was being unreasonable.
“Why would you offer this to me and not someone else?”
His voice rose slightly. “Because I do not want someone else.”
This was insanity. And yet, I couldn’t dismiss the way the crown fit perfectly in my hands. The way it fit even better on my head.
He let go of my hands, only to cradle the back of my head with a tenderness that weakened my knees. “I chose you. You and me. Every moment we’ve shared. Has it all meant nothing to you?”