Chapter Ninety-Five Rhea
Xander sits up, his elbow resting on his knee as he catches his breath, an uncomfortable tension brewing between us. I’m the first to break it when I drop my gaze to the ground. “How did you know I was here?”
“I didn’t until— No, you don’t get to ask questions until you explain to me what you were doing.
” He shakes his head, raking a hand through his already mussed black hair.
“Because it almost looked like you were about to jump from the balcony. And I know that can’t be right when…
” His words trail off as I lift my head to look at him, bleak realization flattening his mouth.
“Fuck,” he whispers, his shoulders going slack.
“It’s more dangerous for me to be alive than it is for me… not to be.”
Xander exhales sharply, emitting a noise caught somewhere between an incredulous laugh and a menacing growl. “How long have you been contemplating this?”
“Long enough to understand all that it means.”
“Rhea.” He drags his hand down his face, his mouth opening and closing as words catch in his throat.
“I know,” I cut in, moving to stand. My legs wobble beneath me, adrenaline and nerves crashing tumultuously together. “But, Xander, I’m dangerous because of what I am. And so many have been hurt in my name. So many lives taken because of me. When does it stop?”
“When we get the ring off of you.”
The laugh that tumbles out of me is despondent. “And do you think King Dolian will be taking it off me anytime soon? I have tried everything, Xander! Even attempting to cut my own finger off. But nothing has worked. Nothing has come close!”
Xander stands, his hands bracketing his hips.
“And what if you had succeeded just now?” he asks, his voice poignantly soft yet still demanding my attention.
My heart races until my vision begins to blur.
Or maybe it’s the tears gathering there.
But Xander presses on. “What about Nox? What do you think he would do when he found out?”
“You know the reports from the Mage Kingdom,” I offer lamely.
“He is too preoccupied with his own kingdom and family to…” To what.
Care? Even in my current state, I know that would never be true.
And so does the man standing across from me.
He frowns, his disappointment something that pricks at the shame bubbling inside of me.
“I’m tired of people getting hurt. Of them dying. Alexi, Immie, Tienne, Bella—”
“She’s alive,” he interrupts, his gaze boring into mine.
“I— What? Who is alive?”
“Bella.”
I let out a croaked noise of confusion, sure I’ve misheard him. “What are you talking about? King Dolian told me she was dead. I asked you, and—”
“You didn’t ask. You accused,” he says, taking a step towards me.
“And I could have corrected you then, but you weren’t ready to hear it.
I’m not entirely sure that you are now, but I’ll say anything if it means you won’t give up on yourself.
Bella is alive, and her name—her true name—is Siyala.
” Slowly, as if afraid he’ll frighten me if the movement is too sudden, he turns and extends his hand out to me.
“And if you promise to get off of this balcony and come inside with me, I’ll tell you everything I know about her. ”
I search his gaze, looking for a hint of deception or manipulation.
Xander lets me, his hand staying extended as he drops all pretense of a mask, leaving himself bare and vulnerable in front of me for the first time ever.
“Please,” he says again into the darkness between us, and I wonder if he has ever uttered that word to anyone before.
Bella is alive.
My chest cracks at the revelation, my heart torn between wanting to believe him, and knowing that every moment I’m left to the king’s whims could mean more lives put at risk.
Despite not having tipped over the balcony, I still feel as if I’m in a free fall, the shattered pieces of myself scattered as I struggle to reach for them.
I’m mid-scream, unmoored in a way I never have been before, but…
Xander takes another step towards me.
Bella is alive.
With trembling fingers, I slip my hand into his.
Xander finds some towels in the bathroom of the loft and brings them down for me to dry off, my teeth chattering from more than just the cold.
“It’s the adrenaline,” he says without prompting, letting me choose where to sit first. I sink down into Alexi’s chair, and Xander takes the couch, his elbows resting on his knees. “It’ll be coursing through you for a while, so don’t be surprised if you find it difficult to sleep tonight.”
“It already is,” I say under my breath, setting the towel on the ground before leaning back, hugging my knees to my chest. Emotions I haven’t let surface in weeks press at my chest and behind my eyes, but instead I focus my attention on Bella. On Siyala. “Tell me about her.”
Xander does. He launches into the tale of how she was captured by the guards at the Mage Kingdom border, shot but not dead.
The pain of the arrow had forced her to shift, a surprise to everyone including her.
“It took a while for her to talk to me, to want to talk to me,” he says, his gaze forward as he recalls his time with her—with Siyala.
“What made her talk?”
“I didn’t torture her. I didn’t lay a finger on her,” he says quickly, likely hearing the accusation in my tone.
“I got her to open up to me by telling her about myself.” He lets out an embarrassed laugh, the tops of his cheeks turning a light shade of pink.
“I groveled, for lack of a better word, and apologized for my inaction when the king came to the tower. I explained the resistance and who the king was to me. I assumed she wouldn’t give a shit about any of it, but Siyala proved me wrong.
She is strong. Fierce. A force to be reckoned with, and I figured that the only way I could gain her trust was to give her something she could use against me if she needed to. ”
“And did she? Need to, I mean?”
He shakes his head, tucking the dark strands at his temple behind his ear. “No. Siyala and I became friends. Of a sort.”
My eyebrow arches at the added definition.
“We talked a lot about her life in the tower. What she remembered from back home. And about you.”
Heat creeps my own cheeks when I ask, “What did she say about me?”
“She didn’t dive into anything personal when it came to you, not for my lack of trying.
I didn’t know anything about you—besides the fact that you are the true heir to the throne and that the king is obsessed with you.
I had no idea what sort of danger you might pose or what kind of obstacle you’d be.
All I knew of you is that you ran away with a guard who I later found out was a prince and that you had magic.
Beyond that”—he shrugs, the right corner of his mouth lifting a fraction—“it wasn’t until I spoke to Siyala that I learned enough about you to know that you were—are—a good person.
And if she was willing to endure whatever torment King Dolian might inflict on her, while snarling in his face that she’d kill him, then you must be someone worth protecting. You must be someone of worth to her.”
My chin falls to my chest as I bite down on my lower lip. I don’t deserve that sort of praise and certainly not from her. She had been trapped, just as much a prisoner as I was. “And yet she endured more suffering because of me. Because of who I am to the king.”
“You can’t hold yourself accountable for other people’s choices, Rhea,” he counters, flexing his hands where they rest between his knees.
“You didn’t order the guards to shoot her.
You didn’t demand that they bring her back to the dungeon for the king to question.
And if you want to argue that she was only in the forest because of you, then you also need to acknowledge that at any moment, Siyala could have chosen to leave you.
She had the mental awareness to run away from you and Nox and try to find her way back to the Shifter Kingdom on her own.
But she chose you. She made that choice not out of command by you but because she wanted to. ”
My chest rises with a ragged breath.
“Take it from someone who has had to learn how to navigate around their own guilt. There is no amount of self-imposed penance that can ever fix someone else’s choice.”
“And what sort of things might you blame yourself for?”
“The death of my mother. Of my friends. Of Alexi and countless others.” He looks down at his hands, turning his palms to face up. “I know what it is to feel like everyone who comes into contact with you is now in danger. I know because it’s something I live with too.”
“I’m sorry,” I rasp, shaking my head. “For those losses. For the way I treated you when I first got here.”
Xander gives a quick nod, looking about as uncomfortable as I’ve ever seen him—earlier talk of Siyala included—before stoicism once more masks his features.
The ease with which he can let his guard down and put it back up again is impressive.
I ask more about Siyala, and he explains her time in captivity and how he helped her escape.
“She is back home in the Shifter Kingdom?”
“I made sure of it,” he answers. Then, more quietly and with a gentle fondness, he adds, “Much to her chagrin.”
I smile as a fraction of the tension caught in my chest eases knowing that Siyala is now safe.
And I’m honored to know her true name, even if I might never have the opportunity to call her by it.
My shivers begin to subside as quiet once more trickles in, Xander and I watching each other until he lets loose a long sigh and leans back against the couch.
“So.”
“So,” I mimic, sweat beading along the back of my neck. I expect him to berate me for my actions, and I prepare whatever meager defense I can in preparation.
But Xander catches me off guard when he says, “Come with me to meet the members of the resistance.”
“I— Xander, it’s too risky. If the king—”
“Look, I understand, probably as well as you do, what the risks are. The dangers. I’ve lived my entire life pretending to be something I’m not in order to build this movement.
I’m going to tell you what I told the men who wanted you dead because of the risk you pose to it all: If I am willing to bring you in, knowing that at any moment you could betray us, that the king could force you to tell him everything, then that should be enough reasoning for anyone else.
Please, Rhea, I think it will be beneficial for us all if you go. ”
My throat constricts around a single word. “Why?”
“Because my people need to see that you aren’t a threat. They need to look at you with their own eyes in an environment not controlled by the king. My word, as much as they all trust it, will only get them so far. But beyond that, you need to be there when we finalize our plans.”
“Plans? Plans for what?”
“Your escape.”
I fight back a chagrinned look as I lean back in Alexi’s chair. “How, Xander? With the ring on my finger, I don’t think I can escape.”
“Let’s leave the details for when you meet the people who will be helping.”
I laugh around a frustrated breath. “I’m not sure I hold the same conviction you do.”
He shrugs before standing, taking a step towards me as he once again extends his hand out for mine. “I don’t blame you for having a healthy dose of skepticism, but I trust you enough to expose everything I’ve spent my life working towards.” He swallows roughly. “Can you trust me to help you?”
I look out to the balcony, noticing the way the clouds from the previous storm have parted and now reveal a night sparkling with stars.
And though the weight of everything I have done and seen and learned feels impossible to bear, when Xander softly says my name again, wiggling his fingers to get my attention, I decide that in this moment, I can make another choice.
That perhaps his timing had been more than luck.
He and I have the kind of history that isn’t so easily forgotten, but I have seen him try his best to help me.
I do trust him, even if I doubt that he can actually help me escape.
I stand and slip my hands into his, our handshake tentative when something he said earlier snags my attention. “What did you mean when you said you explained to Siyala who the king is to you?”
He sighs again, dropping my hand to rub at the back of his neck. “In the spirit of honesty, there’s probably one more thing you should know about me.”
My eyes narrow, arms crossing over my chest. “And what is that?”
“King Dolian is my father.”