Chapter 18
My disbelief lasts for less than a heartbeat before it’s replaced with something a whole lot hotter. Pure fucking rage.
How dare he say that to me? He was the one with the Godsdamn redhead!
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ I spit as I push myself up and move away from Ruben.
The horses are still whinnying, but by some miracle Benny and Caz are keeping them calm.
A real fucking miracle because the sight of Elska should be enough to send anyone running.
And yet my eyes barely flicker to the wolf.
They’re fixed entirely on the icy irises of the prince.
‘What are you doing here?’ I repeat, a tingle of magic thrumming in my fingers.
‘Following you,’ he says simply, as if that makes sense.
I don’t know how I don’t laugh at the absurdity of the statement.
Instead, I shake my head in disbelief. ‘What? Why? You abandoned me.’ I wish the words didn’t sound so pathetic.
That the hurt didn’t tremble in my tone.
I wish the ice would come from my fingers and slice his skin just so he could know a fraction of the pain he caused me, and yet none comes.
As I stand there, his eyes lock on mine. Soft. Unwavering.
‘Not willingly. Never willingly, Rose.’
‘And the pretty redhead on your arm? You didn’t willingly have her there either, I take it?’ I bite back.
‘She is new to court. My father bade me show her around.’
‘And you were just being a great prince? Taking a nice stroll under a beautiful clear sky? You couldn’t even pretend to be heartbroken for more than a couple of days!’
‘Those clear skies were at my father’s command,’ Kyor interrupts me. ‘He was worried people would notice I was … emotionally compromised. That I was showing weakness.’ His jaw is tight.
I try to scoff, but the sound gets trapped in my throat.
Across the way, Benny coughs loudly. ‘I think us three need to take the other horses over there. You know, away from the wolf … and erm, yeah. See if we can chase down the other one. Well, probably not chase, but you just …’ He shoots Ruben a look. ‘Are you coming?’
It takes Ruben a second, but then he’s striding towards Benny and Caz. A minute later, the three of them are gone, giving Kyor and me some semblance of privacy. Not that I’m sure I even want it.
It hurts to look at him. To see him like this, relaxed among nature like we’re back in the Retterheld rather than clutched in the poisonous bosom of the High Hold.
It hurts to meet those bright blue eyes staring into the heart of me, to feel the pull to run to him, as if nothing has happened between us.
But it has. Everything has changed.
‘What are you doing here, Kyor?’ I snap. ‘You made your choice.’
His eyes flash. ‘And I’d make the same one again. I know you can’t understand it, Rose, but there is more at play than you know. Far more. Even for you, I cannot defy my father.’
No, of course not. He’s made that perfectly clear. And yet he seems intent on making me relive the pain of our revocation again.
‘Then why are you here? Your father will never approve of me, and you will never defy him. As you made it so eminently clear, we’re done.’
‘We will never be done.’ He takes a step towards me, and I can feel the static buzzing in the air between us.
Static that he rolled over my skin time and time again.
Static that I know I should run from. ‘You and I are as inevitable as the rising sun. Tell me that you did not feel it as we danced together.’
‘I didn’t,’ I snarl, pushing away the delicious sensation of his magic that threatens to consume me.
‘All I felt was my broken fucking heart. We’re not inevitable.
Just because you can spout pretty lines, it doesn’t change anything between us.
We’re done. So done. A relationship needs trust, and I sure as fuck don’t trust you now. ’
I hate the words falling from my lips, but they’re true. I deserve someone whom I trust with unfaltering certainty. Someone whom I know will fight for me. For us.
And evidently, that man isn’t Kyor Knavin.
As his jaw twitches, he folds his arms across his chest. ‘We’ll rebuild it. We can. What we have is real.’
‘How?’ The word bursts from me with such force that even Elska flinches. ‘How can it be real? You lied to me, Kyor. You loved Thea! You loved her, and you lied about it. You lied to my face.’
He grimaces. ‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Really? Because it’s pretty fucking simple from where I’m standing.’
I don’t want to be having this conversation. I don’t want him here, muddling my already addled thoughts.
And yet he’s not leaving and I can’t draw myself away from him. Even now. Even with my heart torn out and trampled, I can’t walk away from him.
‘The Thea I knew …’ he starts. ‘The Thea I planned to marry, she—’
‘You planned to marry her?’ A gasp flies from me, almost loud enough to muffle the sound of my heart breaking all over again.
With pursed lips, he rubs his hand along the back of his neck.
‘I thought I loved her. Truly.’ A wistful gaze crosses his expression.
‘This fierce, strong woman who wrote music, just like my mother once did. I thought we had a connection. We liked the same foods, the same drinks, and the same dances. It was all I hoped to find in someone. And so I picked out three rings for her.’
Tears fill my eyes. I need him to stop. If any part of him ever loved me, then I do not understand why he would keep speaking, pulling me apart word by word.
And yet he doesn’t stop.
‘Then, two days before I intended to propose, Leilah caught one of the serving girls spiking my drink.’
‘What?’ I say, unable to help myself.
‘Zelle was the one who questioned her. It didn’t take much for her to break. The maid confessed that the king had ordered her to do it – to spike my drink with an infatuation potion.’
I gape despite myself. Such abhorrent magic is illegal throughout Morathka. Luckily, the ingredients are rare. But I suppose nothing is too rare for a king.
As my mind tries to slot the pieces of the story together, my thoughts can’t help but wander to the maid. I have no doubt she suffered more than just Zelle’s interrogation when the king found out she had been caught. The thought makes me shudder.
‘It turned out that Thea and my father had conspired together. He wanted me to settle down and establish the next heir for the security of Morathka, and when I told him I wasn’t ready, he took things into his own hands.
Told Thea things – things about Mother – that she used to form a connection with me.
So yes, I told her I loved her, and yes, I believed it, but it was all based on lies and potions. ’
My heart is pounding and part of me is desperate for this all to be revealed as a fabrication. Because if it’s not … I sniff back the tears that threaten to fall, though for once they’re not for me.
Kyor’s own father helped to drug him and tried to force him into a marriage he truly didn’t want. That’s foul by anyone’s standards.
But it doesn’t change the fact that Kyor never told me about Thea. That he actively lied about their relationship. Trust doesn’t work like that.
Despite myself, I want to know more, even though it feels like I am willingly tearing my own stitches wide and worsening a wound that has not yet had a chance to heal.
I hear the question leave my mouth all the same. ‘What happened when you found out the truth?’
His lips twist. ‘I confronted Thea. Told her that if she ever came near me again, I would kill her.’ He pauses, letting the depth of the words linger in the air. ‘And I meant it. Utterly. I truly thought myself in love. She betrayed me.’
Join the club, I think darkly.
‘When my father realised his machinations were foiled, he stripped Thea of her power and banished her from court. He couldn’t have evidence of his failure lingering.
’ Kyor’s blue eyes hold mine. ‘I still do not know the truth of a baby, whether one ever lived or not. I suspect it was nothing more than Thea’s last-ditch attempt to save herself from my father, an effort to get him to show mercy, to stay his hand.
I have had people watch her since, and there has never been any sign of a child, stillborn or otherwise, but I doubt I will ever know the full truth. ’
As angry as I am, my pathetic heart still hurts for him. ‘I’m sorry, Kyor.’ The words leave me as a whisper.
I am no monster of Wrohelm, and I am sorry. What he has been through is more than anyone should have to suffer.
With a single nod, Kyor accepts my sympathy, but the tension remains in his frame. I know what he is waiting for, but I cannot give that to him.
No way in hell. All I can offer him is the truth.
‘I’m sorry for what you went through, but it changes nothing between us,’ I continue with effort, wishing my voice didn’t tremble.
That I didn’t feel weak again. ‘You broke my heart, Kyor. You looked at your father, and you lied about my mother. Again. She deserves absolution and you stole it from her for a second time. And then … you chose your crown over me.’
His jaw works. ‘I do not deny that I chose my duty over you, Rose, but I swear I had no other choice. I cannot explain other than to say that there is more at stake than you know.’ Frustration tears through his words.
‘Because you don’t trust me?’ My torn heart hardens.
‘No … it’s not that. It’s because I can’t.’ His eyes plead. ‘Do you understand? I can’t. I can’t tell you.’
Slowly it dawns on me. ‘A vow …’ I say. ‘You’re bound by a vow.’
Relief floods his eyes. He can’t even nod to confirm it, but I see it.
Beside him, Elska lets out a rumbling growl that makes the hairs on my neck stand on end.
So what does that mean? He was able to speak of Thea so his vow – if he truly has taken one – relates to something else.
I shake my head. ‘This changes nothing.’
‘When you understand, it will change everything,’ he says with a confidence that infuriates me. ‘But in the meantime, I’m going to earn back your trust,’ he promises, and his tone brooks no argument.
My head moves before I can stop it. No, he won’t. ‘You have your duty, and I have mine.’
‘I know your duty too, Rose. I know where you’re going. You travel to the Issen,’ he says, keeping his voice low. I do not deny it, and he continues, ‘To learn of your ice magic.’ He meets my eyes. ‘As you should.’
I want to be shocked, but I’m not. Like Benny, he’s smart, and if I weren’t so determined to deny the truth to myself, I’m sure I would have come to the obvious conclusion even without Dinah’s help.
That Kyor not only knows but also approves of my choice to leave in search of answers actually warms me – and I fucking hate that.
He knows of my magic, has deduced my plans, and has not told his father any of it.
Even though it’s treason.
It feels as if we’re back on the ice of Follen Lake, sliding forward step by step, waiting for the ice to crack and for us to plunge to our deaths.
‘My father is sending me to the Hirathean Pass to retake command there. That’s why I left this morning. But when Elska picked up your scent, I knew it was a sign from the Gods. Rose, I’ll travel north with you. That way I can protect you.’
I stiffen. ‘I do not need your protection, Your Royal Highness.’ I use his title like a slap, knowing how much he hates it.
‘Yet you cannot stop me from giving it to you, Lady Kultavaris.’ He tosses back my own title with a smirk.
There is no way I want to have him on the journey with me – no way I can deal with the distraction – but before I can tell him to fuck off, Benny clears his throat behind us.
‘Sorry to interrupt, but we have a problem.’ He looks at me as he speaks, utterly ignoring Kyor in a manner that makes me love him a little more. ‘We found your horse, Rose.’ He grimaces. ‘It was hurt. It was kindest to put it out of its misery.’
Well, fuck. RIP Blaze. That’ll teach me to name my horse. I look at the remaining horses. Three left for the four of us.
‘We’ve sorted out the supplies,’ Benny continues, ‘but as for riders—’
‘Rose will ride with me,’ Kyor says, his tone brooking no argument.
I bristle. ‘The fuck I will!’
There’s no way I can endure being pressed against his body for hours, the scent of him all around me.
‘You’re not in charge here,’ I snap. ‘I am. And if you don’t like it, leave!
’ Taking a leaf out of Benny’s book, I ignore Kyor entirely and return to conversing with my friend.
‘It’s fine. I can double up with Ruben.’
Even from the corner of my eye, I can see Kyor’s eyes narrow dangerously. ‘Who the fuck is Ruben?’
Ruben steps forward. ‘That would be me. Rose and I go way back. Right, Rosey?’ He offers me the slightest of grins before turning back to Kyor, a leisurely confidence in his movements that – combined with the comment – tells Kyor exactly what Ruben and I did back in the day.
Kyor’s nostrils flare as the air is suddenly thick with ozone.
‘Don’t you dare!’ I snarl. ‘You strike him with lightning, and I will never forgive you.’
The prince’s jaw works, but slowly the thickness in the air fades.
‘If you won’t ride with me, then share with Benny,’ Kyor growls.
‘If I see his hands on you again, I won’t be responsible for my actions.
’ He glares long and hard at Ruben, but my friend doesn’t wilt under the heat of it.
If anything, he straightens his shoulders more.
‘I’ll scout ahead,’ Kyor grunts as he mounts his dire wolf. With that, he and Elska surge forward and away.
‘Well,’ Caz says into the resultant silence, ‘that wasn’t awkward at all.’
She leans towards Benny. ‘Llin said their chemistry was insane, but I actually think she downplayed it.’
Benny squints after Kyor. ‘You think they’ll sort it out?’
Caz laughs. ‘Not before they make the rest of us deeply uncomfortable.’
‘I can literally hear you,’ I complain.
She flashes me a smile. ‘I know.’
‘Let’s mount up,’ Ruben says, ignoring us all. ‘We’ve got a long way to go.’ He extends a hand to me.
I hesitate and finally shake my head. ‘I’ll ride with Benny. Safer for everyone.’
Ruben’s nostrils flare. ‘Then he’s calling the shots already. I didn’t know you were so easily controlled.’ With a shake of his head, he turns away.
It hurts a little that he’s disappointed in me.
‘Oh good,’ Benny murmurs to me as we settle on the horse together, ‘another love triangle.’ He presses his thumbs and forefingers together to make a triangle with his fingers. ‘I was worried I’d miss Jonas.’
‘Arsehole,’ I gripe.
‘You love me,’ he replies, pressing his heels to the horse’s side so we break into a trot.
Above us the sun is partway into its ascent, but we’ve got a good few hours to go until we hit midday.
Something tells me today is going to be an extremely long day.