CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Time slid through my fingers like grains of dirt. And Brannon still hadn’t come to retrieve me.
Then it wasn’t just wariness that kept my consciousness partially alert throughout my dreamless sleep.
Beads of sweat began to form under my clothes, dampening my skin with an uncomfortable clamminess. I shifted against the coarse bedsheets, the back of my neck prickling from strands of hair stuck to my skin. The temperature of the room climbed until it was almost suffocating.
Eyes snapping open, I bit back a scream, scrambling into a sitting position.
My room was on fire.
Real, scorching fire rapidly devoured all surfaces, seeking purchase along the walls, floors, and ceiling. The small chair, now blackened with soot, rained ash from its four legs. It would collapse at this rate.
I knew only one person who could wield fire this masterfully at a distance.
Message received.
Furiously blinking the remaining sleep out of my eyes, I hopped off the mattress, careful to avoid the growing flames eating away at the frame.
Each breath proved more difficult than the next, heat and smoke shoving down my throat instead of air.
If I didn’t hurry, I was sure to lose consciousness again.
A good kick sent what was left of the chair tumbling away from the door.
I grit my teeth against a thousand different curses threatening to tumble past my lips, pulled my sleeve over my hand, and yanked the door open just enough for me to slip through. Then stomped across the short distance between my room and the one I could no longer avoid.
I pounded on Kodhan’s door repeatedly—hard enough for it to shake on its hinges, without cease.
Kodhan’s figure rapidly filled the frame, towering over my own. I ignored the way my heart did a small leap over itself as I took him in. His eyes narrowed into slits. “You’ve made enough noise to summon every competitor in this corridor. Are you satisfied with yourself?”
“Not yet.” I gathered all my strength into my right arm and swung.
My fist connected with his jaw.
The act took him with enough surprise that he staggered a few steps backwards.
“What was the point?” I advanced, readying another swing.
He caught my fist before it could make contact again. Satisfaction bloomed inside of me as a red blotch already began to form where I’d struck him.
His jaw worked from side to side. “You’re asking me that question?”
“Don’t play the fool,” I seethed, trying to pull my fist out of his grip. But he held fast, squeezing hard enough that my bones creaked. “Burning me alive? Such a grand gesture coming from a bastard like you.”
He glanced between me and the empty corridor. “Will you lower your voice?” Still holding my fist, he reached over my shoulder to pull his door closed.
His chest skimmed my shoulder when he straightened.
I gaped at him. “Lower my voice? You almost killed me in my sleep!” I swung with my other hand, to punch or to smack him—either one would’ve been enough.
But he caught that one too, and with a sigh that sent agitation shooting through my veins at a blinding speed, he held both my wrists above my head, pushing us back in one fluid movement so my spine bumped against the door, his body keeping me pinned in place.
His thighs pressed into mine. Stealing any possibility of being able to kick him.
“But I didn’t,” he countered, his face so close to mine that our breaths mingled, mine uneven with rage and his frustratingly steady.
Every time I writhed, he applied more weight onto my limbs. The wood behind me groaned. It was no use. I met his unflinching stare. “Let go of me.”
“Are you going to hit me again?” He squeezed both of my wrists for emphasis.
“No promises.”
His mouth quirked up in a hint of a smile. But too quickly did the amusement fade from his eyes, giving way to an intensity that had trepidation crawling along the back of my arms and neck.
“I needed—” His throat worked around the words, bobbing as he swallowed. “I wanted to see you.”
I rolled my eyes, giving myself a moment of reprieve from holding his heavy stare. “Has the idea of knocking ever crossed your thick skull?”
“Would you have answered knowing I was the one knocking?”
My mouth opened. Then snapped shut.
He smiled, then. A real one, for the second time. The harsh lines of his constant scowl melted into something… soft. Warm.
“That doesn’t matter. I’m here now,” I said, a tad breathlessly. “You got what you wanted. Talk.”
Peering around him, I scanned the room for Brannon and Theia, who were nowhere to be seen.
Noting my search, he offered, “They went to Theia’s room.”
“Good. If someone yelled at me like that, I wouldn’t want to see their face, either.”
That one muscle ticked in his jaw. “Brannon told me how he found you waiting outside. How you claimed to not have heard anything. But something tells me that’s false.”
An incredulous laugh burst from me. “Is that what this is about?”
He remained quiet. Expectant.
“I have no reason to be dishonest.” The wood at my back groaned again.
“I heard nothing worthy of noting. Something about a woman seeking out light. If you’re not already aware, Kodhan, there are many women in this kingdom who seek light.
Aedreath is permanently plagued with night. It is not a discerning trait.”
His eyes roved over my face, searching for any hints of mistruth. “That is all you heard?”
“That’s all I understood.” I flexed my hands, working out the tiny pinpricks of numbness beginning to form. “The identity of your mystery woman remains a mystery.”
His shoulders lowered, deflating. He studied me for a moment longer, then nodded once. Twice. Like he was inwardly confirming some sort of suspicion, snapping together pieces of a puzzle he’d been stuck on.
Suddenly, he let me go, taking all but one step backwards. It wasn’t enough to withdraw the heat that peppered my skin. “That’s good, then.” Good, and yet his tone lacked any positive conviction.
I slowly lowered my arms. “If the point of nearly flaying me alive was to interrogate me—falsely, might I add—I think it is only befitting for me to demand, again, what you’ve done to warrant a place here.”
“I already gave you an answer.”
“And it wasn’t good enough.” I found myself moving away from him, further into the room, if only to avoid getting pinned against the door again.
A heaviness settled into my stomach, sour and frigid.
It sent acid up the back of my throat. “Betraying the crown is an early sentence to the Hearth of Song. You’re fools, all of you.
Your positions here could have been prevented.
You could have been guaranteed a full life. ”
“Is one truly a fool for dreaming of something better? Something more? You cannot be so blind as to how Maverick acts towards his kingdom. That his benevolence is but a mere act to hide just how cruel he can be.” His words pelted my back like stones. “Where we are is a perfect example.”
“I am not blind at all.” A crown woven of white gold.
His thundering heart under my fingertips.
“I know very well how cruel he can be.” How much of it was real?
How much of it had been part of his strategic games?
“But I know better than to go against him. The gods themselves rest their hands on his shoulders.”
“No foe is completely undefeatable.”
I turned to look at him. Really look at him.
Unsurprisingly, he’d followed me, leaving little space between where I stood and where he simmered, a frown fixed on his face.
“Every single person before you has failed. And yet, you continue craft false realities. Fight a constant losing battle. It’s as if you line your souls up before the Hearth of Song like an offering. ”
I’d seen Kodhan angry before. But the way his face contorted with a rage so pure, so soul-consuming—it stole the breath from my lungs. “You have no place to talk about reality. None.”
My fists clenched at my sides, the urge to hit him again almost overwhelming.
“You’re right. No, traitors to the crown, and their motives, have not been a big concern of mine.
” I infused so much venom into my next words that I nearly choked on them.
“Forgive me, if I’ve grown to look out for myself, care only for myself.
If I grant myself the privilege of Maverick’s good graces on his best days, well aware of how he treats others on his worst. Because sometimes I think the kingdom deserves it! ”
Disgust filled his glare. “You think innocent people deserve to suffer because of unchecked power?”
The edges of my periphery darkened. “Look at me, straight at my right iris, and ask me that again.”
That shut him up.
His silence allowed me to chew on the realization that he’d never hated me because of my curse.
He hated me for how close I was to Maverick.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“What?” he barked.
“Hatred is such a fickle thing, isn’t it? It’s like a plague, jumping from person to person. A fire that stokes itself. Such a powerful tool, and yet all it does is drive people in circles. A never-ending cycle.”
His brows lowered.
“Hatred? What does hatred have to do—” He cut himself short. His jaw lost all its tension at once. “You think I hate you.”
Biting the inside of my cheek was the only way to keep from scoffing. “Don’t pretend it isn’t true. Not to worry, the feeling is mutual.”
It was his turn to laugh, the sound sliding down my arms, my spine. “I don’t hate you, little viper.”
“Save it. Your threats on my life talk for themselves. Speaking of which, we are nearing Wit. If you’re going to kill me, do it now, because I would hate wasting my efforts.”
My shoulder smacked into him as I aimed to leave. But his hand shot out to grab my elbow. He crooked a finger under my chin, forcing me to look up at him. He wasn’t rough by any means—I could have evaded him easily. Could have swatted his hand away. But I didn’t.
“I don’t hate you,” he repeated. “And I was never going to kill you.”
Nothing but honesty shone in his face. I almost wished it didn’t.
It was so easy to hate. To be angry. They were the easiest emotions to control. To aim.
To hide behind.
“Theia said you wouldn’t. I didn’t believe her.” She’d been so convinced, back when we sat against the base of the wisteria.
His smile returned, small and knowing. “You did well not to.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, swallowing against the memory of saying those same three words not long ago. “Never mind. It’s fine. I’ll figure it out myself—”
He shook his head. Ran the pad of his thumb across my lower lip, drawing my sentence to a halt. “Then I will spell it out for you.”
There was no hiding now. No, not at all.
“I often say the opposite of what I truly mean. Purposely inflict pain on people in hopes that it will alleviate the burn of my own, which constantly threatens to consume me. Even if it never helps. I never learn.”
I had half a mind left to say, against his thumb, “I already know you have a plethora of horrible qualities.”
His laugh rumbled throughout the room. “I’m not finished.” He finally retracted his hand. “Every time I look at you, I’m constantly reminded of someone I lost. Someone I don’t think I’ll ever get back.”
“The mystery woman,” I guessed.
He didn’t deny or confirm it. He simply went on.
“And I was angry with you. For being here when she wasn’t.
Angry that I couldn’t find her in you. And I knew that wasn’t fair.
But it was easy to be angry with you when I didn’t know you.
So I made those threats, each one of them as empty as I felt.
” Anguish filled the hues of jade that bore right into my soul.
Searching for something that I didn’t seem to have.
As I stared back, I saw the silent war that waged within his own soul. A war of that magnitude could not have begun yesterday. He’d been suffering, disguising it as indifference entwined with cruelness.
“But now I know you. I know that you’ve suffered at Maverick’s hands, too.
Even if it’s not the same way others do.
You might not have chosen to be here, but you want to win more than anyone else.
I see it, that need, shining brighter than any star when you see others using magic.
It burns hotter than any flame when others doubt you—underestimate you.
It shines here,” he said, swiping that same thumb under my right eye.
“And here.” My breathing hitched as his other hand slid down my chest, stopping to rest above my frantic heart.
“You saw it, and yet you acted like you didn’t,” I said tersely.
“And what if I hadn’t?” He challenged. “I may have a plethora of horrible qualities, but I’m not foolish.
You were angry for being forced into the trials.
Afraid. Lost. You are one of the strongest beings I’ve ever known, Eloise.
But those feelings can blind anyone. Even the gods themselves.
Can lead one right to their demise, all because they couldn’t look past their own two feet. ”
I hated that he was right. Hated that he’d seen right through me since the very beginning. I turned my head away, unable to bear it any longer. Even if he’d already seen everything.
“Is that supposed to be an apology?” I whispered.
“No, it’s not,” he replied gently, cradling my face, my jaw. When my eyes met his again, they shone like true gemstones, ignited by the magic that burned in his veins. I expected smoke to drift past my nose, or ashes to dance around in the air. Yet none of it came.
“Good. Because it would have been terrible.”
His answering chuckle sparked something hotter than fire in the center of my core. The innermost parts of my thighs throbbed with it.
“There are far better ways to repent for my wrongdoings.” If I so much as moved an inch, there would be nothing stopping our lips from touching.
“Best act quickly, then.” The heat of his magic enveloped me fully. I knew exactly what that entailed. What it would do to me. “You have a long list of misdeeds.”
I didn’t care. Not anymore.
His hands slid from my face to the back of my head, fingers knotting into my hair. I leaned further into him instinctively. His touch was molten. “I have no qualms with starting right here.” The words were barely more than a growl.
“This is ridiculous,” I said, my lips brushing across his with each word. We shared a sharp intake of breath at the contact. “It makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense to me.”
Surely, one of us would see logic. “You’re mad.”
“Only where you are concerned, little viper.”
Fire consumed every piece of my soul as his lips crashed into mine.