Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Nova
The blood on the walls was dry by the time we reached the entrance to the swords’ chamber.
The doors to that chamber remained sealed. A handful of guards were examining the splatters of blood along with a section of one of the doors that appeared to have been burned; Bastian went to speak with them while I stood numbly, taking it all in, and Thalia mumbled curses to herself as she examined the bloody footprint closest to us. Phantom, in the form of a smaller-than-usual dog, darted between the guards and the walls, sniffing the bloodstains, his ears twitching with unease.
After a few minutes of discussion, Bastian opened the chamber doors at my request—just so I could see for myself that both swords were still in their proper places.
I exhaled a slow, relieved breath as their power rippled over me. I had no idea who would have tried to take them, but the thought of their power falling into the wrong hands numbed me straight to my core.
They had been safe in this chamber for years . We’d only needed them to stay safe for a short time longer—long enough for me to prepare to properly wield Grimnor. I’d already felt as if I didn’t have enough time to manage it.
Now, it seemed our time was even shorter, and the situation even more precarious, than we’d feared.
“How could this happen?” I asked. “ When did this happen?”
“It could have been hours ago,” my brother said. “The dead were only discovered when the next round of guards came to relieve them of duty.”
Hours ago .
Had they purposely waited until I was gone from the palace to attempt their heist?
“Somebody in this palace knows something ,” Thalia said. “As secluded as this corner is, there are still plenty of curious eyes falling upon it every day. However sly the assassin and would-be thief was, unless they were invisible…”
An uncomfortable, uncertain silence fell over us, lasting for several minutes, until my brother grumbled something in the Noctarisan language and ushered us out of the chamber; too many curious servants and other palace dwellers were pressing too close, trying to peer inside.
We sealed the room shut once more. My brother ordered everyone else away from the hall, but he, Thalia, Phantom and I lingered in the space, still trying to make sense of it. There was a particularly large splatter of blood near the center of one of the doors; I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
“Where is the Light King?” Bastian asked, after a moment.
“I haven’t seen him this morning,” I said, offhandedly. I was so busy studying the blood that it took a moment for the meaning behind his words to sink in. My gaze shifted to him. “…Why do you ask?”
He didn’t reply, but the concerned look in his tired eyes said enough.
“Aleks wouldn’t have done this.”
He cleared his throat. “…You know I’ll have to question him, all the same. Along with the ones who travel with him.”
My stomach clenched at the thought. “I’ll talk to him myself.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” He took a step toward me, as if planning to prevent me from leaving.
But I was tired of other people speaking on my behalf. Tired of not seeing things for myself, of having others make decisions for me. It was becoming more and more clear that entirely too much of my life had been orchestrated by hands other than my own.
I couldn’t— wouldn’t —let that trend continue.
I backed away from my brother and started briskly down the hallway, only to slow as he called after me: “I’m only trying to keep you safe.”
I paused, glancing over my shoulder to see him hesitating with a pained look in his eyes.
“It’s all I’ve ever done,” he said, “even when I didn’t realize I was doing it.”
“…What are you talking about?”
“The magic that you thought killed me when we were younger,” he explained, closing some of the space between us, “it wasn’t some random manifestation of my power—it was a defensive response. We were attacked that night. There was evidence of other magic used against us, according to both Orin and the King and Queen of Eldris. Evidence of Light magic . It nearly killed us both. My power protected you, according to the ones who witnessed it—but only just. It was a massive amount of power used against us.”
“That doesn’t mean all luxmancers are bad. And it’s certainly not proof that Aleksander would do something like this.”
“The Keepers of Light are our enemies , Nova.”
“He doesn’t work for them.”
“He spent twenty years being indoctrinated by them.”
I opened my mouth only to snap it shut in frustration; I couldn’t refute this fact. I didn’t know the full extent of what had happened to him in his kingdom, but I knew enough that it made my skin crawl to think about it. There was no telling what sorts of things they’d done to him. What beliefs they’d branded into him through abusive, horrendous methods.
Bastian breathed in deep, collecting himself. “You survived the Above for twenty-five years, and you’ve made it all the way back here. Our world is counting on you. I’m counting on you. So just…just don’t throw it all away. That’s all I’m asking.”
“I’m not throwing anything away. I know Aleks didn’t do this.”
My brother’s silence was heavy. Suffocating. His tone was equal parts concerned and exhausted when he finally said, “You trust him? Truly?”
My heart whispered yes.
My mind screamed you shouldn’t.
It was funny how the whisper seemed louder in that moment. More insistent—as though no amount of noise could drown out the feelings stirring in my heart.
“He wouldn’t have done this,” I repeated, fully aware that I sounded like a stubborn fool.
Bastian clenched and unclenched his hand. He seemed to be fighting the urge to reach for me. “You’ve made up your mind about this.”
I somehow steadied myself enough to calmly reply: “Yes.”
“…Speak to him, then.” I was the older twin, but he suddenly looked ten years my senior as his gaze shifted between me and the blood all around us. “Just…please be careful, Nova. I don’t want to lose you again after all this time.”
I didn’t know what to say to this, so I simply nodded. “I’ll be careful.”
Phantom caught up to me, weaving between my legs and sitting down on one of my boots, as if trying to anchor me in place. I hesitated a moment longer, kneeling to give him a reassuring scratch between the ears.
“Stay here and see if you and your nose can help figure some things out.”
( I don’t smell anything unusual, ) he informed me.
“Keep searching. I’ll be back soon.”
He cocked his head from side to side, clearly uneasy, but he obeyed, staying in place as I turned and hurried away.
Thalia immediately went to my brother and started arguing against his decision to let me go; their heated discussion echoed behind me as I picked up my pace. I half-expected one of them to come charging after me, but they didn’t.
I checked the training grounds first, where Aleks typically was at this time. Only Eamon was there, and he informed me that he hadn’t seen the Light King all day. I got a similar answer from every person I encountered during my swift march through the palace: No one had seen him in hours.
With every step I took, fear coiled more tightly in my stomach. Everything I’d spent the morning learning—everything I’d so desperately wanted to talk to Aleks about—rose around me like water, until it felt as if I was just barely keeping my head above the surface.
Was I fooling myself, thinking he was the one to tell everything to? Had I only dreamed the possibility of us being on the same side?
Did my brother have a point?
By the time I reached the hallway where Aleksander’s room was, I was practically running. With effort, I slowed to a jog, trying to catch my breath, gathering at least some composure before I pounded on his door.
He answered almost immediately, as if he’d somehow sensed me coming. He took one look at my face, and then he was moving toward me with concern, his gaze narrowing, searching the hall behind me as if expecting to see someone chasing me down.
“Nova? What’s wrong?”
“Where were you earlier today?”
His eyes settled on my face, questioning.
“Just answer me.”
“What the hell is going on?” he asked.
“Where. Were. You?”
“… Why ?” Tension sparked in the air between us—and for an instant, it was as though all the trust we’d started to build was in danger of unraveling. As if it had been held together by a single thread.
“Because someone attempted to break into the chamber where Luminor and Grimnor are being kept,” I said, as calmly as I could, “and they killed everyone standing in their way.”
His expression changed abruptly. Confusion overtook it first. A hint of panic followed, but that was gone in an instant, replaced by his usual hard, fierce gaze.
Breathlessly, I said, “My brother thinks you—or one of your companions—could be responsible.”
“I don’t know anything about this.”
My throat ached and burned, like I’d swallowed a mouthful of sand. I couldn’t just take his word for things, could I? No one had seen him all day. No one had proof of where he’d been.
“I swear I don’t know anything, Nova.”
Just like he swore he didn’t know who killed my father.
I still didn’t have conclusive evidence of that , either—though I realized, in that horrible instant, how I might be able to obtain it.
I could have gone back to the chamber with the swords.
I could have placed my hand on Luminor’s blade, allowed myself to see what I could of its torrid past—whatever the truth and its consequences ended up being. I was getting better at reading the histories of objects. And there was a chance, too, that I could read something useful from the chamber door itself. Maybe my magic would reveal who had bloodied it, burned it, attempted to force their way through it…
I hadn’t thought of this while examining the scene, and I doubted the idea had crossed Thalia or Bastian’s minds, either; this power wasn’t unheard of, but it wasn’t a common manifestation of necromancy—and it wasn’t something I’d been practicing in the presence of anyone other than myself and Aleks.
It seemed like an obvious way to find the truth.
But did I want to find it?
I immediately knew the answer to that question: No . I felt like a coward…but I wasn’t sure my heart could take being wrong about the feelings I’d started to develop for the man standing before me.
My pulse pounded as I braced a hand against the doorframe.
You trust him?
Truly?
“Come inside,” Aleksander said. “Let’s talk about this. Please.”
I shook my head. I wanted to run. I wanted to stay. I couldn’t get my feet to move in either direction.
“Let’s talk elsewhere, then. Wherever you want to go, I’ll go.”
“What should we talk about?” I asked, voice wavering a little. “The way nothing between us makes sense? The way we’ve both been manipulated so badly that we have no hope of knowing who or what to trust?” I managed a step into his room. Probably against my better judgment…but the hall seemed too open, too exposed for all the things I needed to say. “How about the way you would never— could never —choose me over your duty to your own kingdom?”
“You don’t think I would choose you?” he asked, quietly.
“Everyone here would disagree with that choice, even if you did. This entire palace has done nothing except warn me about you since we arrived. And Zayn has done the same to you, right? I’ve seen the way he looks at me when he thinks I’m not paying attention. He doesn’t trust me any more than my palace trusts you .”
He didn’t deny it.
“And maybe they all have a point. We’re wrong for each other. All wrong. What hope is there for balance, honestly? With every new thing I learn about our worlds and their history, it feels all the more impossible. You feel impossible. We feel impossible.”
Again, he said nothing in his defense.
We stood without speaking for a long moment. That thread binding us together seemed to shake with uncertainty, keeping rhythm with my unsteady heart, twisting and tightening one moment, starting to fray in the next.
Please don’t break, I thought, desperately.
All the things I’d wanted to tell him, all the important, world-shattering, war-related things I needed to talk to him about…none of those things mattered to me just then.
Because, suddenly, all I could think about was him .
All I needed to know was where we went from here—how we could possibly bridge the valleys of hurt and mistrust between us to keep going, to keep bringing life to places where none had any right to bloom.
I could handle things on my own. I knew how to be alone; I’d spent my entire life doing it. But, for perhaps the first time in my life, I didn’t want to face the future alone.
I wanted to face it with him.
I just didn’t see how I could.
Voice breaking a little more, I said, “You let me go last night. You left me alone.”
“I did.”
“Because it was for the best.”
“Yes. It was.”
I steeled myself for another rejection.
“But I regret it,” he said.
My breath hitched. I was certain I’d misheard him. Then he said it again, in a voice clenched tight with emotion—
“I regret it. I swear to the gods, I regret it .”
Before I could reply, he was grabbing the front of my coat, yanking me deeper into his room, pulling me nearly flush with his body. And like a floodgate opening, the confessions began falling from his lips, his growl of a voice sending shivers racing over my skin.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about it for a second,” he said, his grip on me shifting, his hands slipping underneath my coat, taking hold of my hips. “I’ve barely eaten. Or slept. All I’ve really done is think about how badly I wanted to follow you into your room last night and make you forget everything outside of it. How badly I wanted to make you forget everything except me, to bury myself so deeply inside of you that my name would be the only thing left for you to gasp out. To fall asleep, still inside of you, and then wake up and do it all over again.”
I was breathing too hard, my heart pounding too fast, to properly reply.
“I’m tired of fighting with you, Nova. I want you . More than I should, more than makes sense, more than any godsdamn sword or kingdom or anything else.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that we’re on two separate sides of a war. I don’t see how we both win—”
“I don’t care about winning.” His lips crashed against mine, pressing so completely they sealed away any chance of properly breathing. I was dizzy when he finally pulled away and whispered, “I concede defeat.”
The walls spun around me.
He cupped his hands against my face, steadying me as he kissed me again, slower this time.
“I don’t know what’s going on outside of this room,” he said against my lips, his voice low and ragged, “but…stay. Just stay here. Don’t make me beg.”
I closed my eyes against the spinning, leaning my forehead into his shoulder. His arms wrapped around me, enveloping me in the scent of him and his soap; a bright burst of citrus—fresh, tangy, clean. Underneath it lay his more familiar earthy scent, grounding the brightness. Warmth overtook me as I breathed it in—a warmth unlike anything I’d ever felt. The bright blaze of lust was there, gods help me it was always there, but something else had started smoldering underneath it. Something more like a steady, constant glow that I could settle into.
Something that made me think of home.
“Do you even know how to beg, Light King?” I murmured against him.
He laughed softly. “For you, I would manage it.”
I lifted my head. He brushed a hand across my cheek. Threaded his fingers into my hair. His eyes burned into mine, their golden color even more mesmerizing than usual—because I knew he saw nothing else but me in that moment.
He wanted nothing else.
“Stay,” he repeated. “Please stay. And we can figure out the rest later.”
I’d already made up my mind.
I walked back to the door. Closed it. Locked it. Every inch of me was trembling. I didn’t know what happened next. I just knew I didn’t want us to be interrupted—that I wouldn’t survive another interruption.
I turned back around, and the sight of him expectant and waiting for me took my breath away all over again.
He held out his hand. I stepped forward and took it, letting him pull me in. My palm came to rest flat on his chest. His free hand slid around to my backside, cupping my curves, bringing my body firmly to his once more.
I gazed up at him. “You concede defeat.”
“Yes.”
“I win.”
He brushed a hand across my cheek. “You do.”
“And what have I won, exactly?”
The smile that crossed his face was nearly my complete, instant undoing.
Wordlessly, he led me over to the long, cushioned bench that stood at the foot of his bed. Pausing here, his hands roamed over my body, removing my coat, undoing the belt cinching my dress, deftly unfastening the buttons at the back of that dress so he could slide it down.
My head tipped back. My eyes closed as he trailed kisses along my bared shoulders before moving lower, taking hold of my dress as he did, rolling it down along with the supportive binding underneath. The fabric bunched up beneath my breasts, pushing them up to meet his eager mouth. He curved a hand around each breast in turn, gripping them possessively, while rough strokes of his tongue turned their satiny tips into stiff peaks.
A soft moan escaped me.
He paused.
My eyes flashed open.
He nodded toward the bench. “Sit,” he ordered.
I sat.
Kneeling before me, he ran his hands down my legs, leaving a trail of little bumps in the wake of his touch. Slowly, he pulled off one boot, then the other. Stockings and the sheathed knife at my left ankle came next—disarming me, in more ways than one.
He cradled my leg as his lips brushed my calf. My knee. The inside of my thigh. His hand smoothed its way upward at the same time, stopping just short of my center before skimming back down to my knee. He teased me this way several times before finally letting his fingers travel all the way up, where they caressed the thin, dampened fabric between my thighs, applying pressure but not quite penetrating.
His touch was unhurried—savoring.
Gently, he pulled aside the last bit of cloth that separated us, his fingers slipping through the evidence of my arousal, mapping their way over the soft folds trembling with need. That trembling soon overtook my entire body, until even the faintest touches from him threatened to send me over the edge.
He swept another series of kisses along my inner thighs, and then his eyes sought mine as he gave a low, rough command: “Lift your hips for me, Chaos.”
I did, enabling him to roll my dress up over them, further exposing me. He slid the garments underneath off, tossing them onto my boots. His own shirt followed. I settled back down onto the bench, admiring his firm body…and that was when it struck me—
This was actually happening.
Stripping our clothes away felt like peeling away the outer world, like all the dust and doubts of every kingdom were being tossed aside, leaving only the two of us. Nothing else mattered as he kneeled before me once more. As his head dipped between my thighs, pressing a kiss to the needy ache in my center, following it with a few slow, tantalizing swipes of his tongue.
Bracing a hand against the edge of the bed, he leaned up, hovering over me. His mouth found mine, his tongue pushing its way through my lips as his hand settled between my legs.
After a moment of gentle massaging, one finger slipped inside of me. A second soon followed. He dragged his lips away from mine so he could study my face, watching my every reaction to his every touch. Memorizing every gasp and twitch and moan, finding the precise way to draw out more of these things.
While his fingers pushed deeper, curling and coaxing against my inner walls, his thumb found my clit and began to tease it, just barely tapping and circling against its sensitive nerve endings until I was begging for more.
He answered my pleas with heavier, more wicked pressure and movement from his thumb. I lifted my hips again, rocking against his hand with an eagerness that drew a low, dark laugh from him.
He slipped his free hand underneath the small of my back, helping me rock higher, pressing us even more fully, more deeply together. A third finger tapped against my entrance, the tip of it slipping inside. It burned in a delicious, devastating way as he prodded and stretched.
I didn’t want him to stop, yet I heard myself gasp out something that sounded like can’t.
“You can,” he encouraged, his hand moving from my back, instead collaring my throat as he pressed closer and claimed my lips in a deep, hungry kiss, “and you will.”
He moved more slowly, more deliberately, tracing his finger along the edges of me before sinking it all the way in. The sudden fullness pulled a moan from my throat. He silenced it with a kiss and then moved his mouth to the curve of my neck, lips sucking and tongue darting against my pulse as he pressed his fingers farther inside.
“Gods,” he breathed against my skin, “I can’t wait to bury my cock in this tightness.”
The mere thought was enough to send me spiraling toward release. My back arched. Deeper and deeper his fingers plunged, relentlessly pounding in and out of me until I was crying out with pleasure, unable to hold back the orgasm that shattered through me.
As the last cry of release echoed from my throat, he brought his mouth back to my neck and murmured, “What a beautiful fucking sound that was.”
The low-burning chandelier danced above me. I felt as if I was floating in the ceiling alongside its flickering candles. Closing my eyes, I whispered, “You were right about what you said that night at Lake Nyras.”
“…About?”
“Your hands being more capable than mine.”
He laughed quietly, his fingertips delicately tracing the still-throbbing space between my thighs, sending ripples of ecstasy rolling through me. “Is this you conceding defeat as well?” he asked.
“At least about this.”
“So what do I win?”
“What sort of prize did you have in mind?” I opened my eyes to find him watching me as closely as he had earlier, the hunger still burning brightly, beautifully in his eyes. Pleasant shivers cascaded through me as he considered my question for several beats, his hand smoothing its way up my stomach, across my bare chest, pinching my still hard nipples.
He didn’t answer right away, so I let my gaze drift out of focus, thinking only of the way his hands felt as they explored my body.
“For my prize…” he finally answered, his touch trailing back between my thighs, fingers circling through the dampness, “… I want to taste you. To truly taste you, and show you that my hands are not nearly as capable as my mouth.”
I’d thought I was finished, utterly spent and satisfied from what he’d already done—but his words sent a fresh shock of desire through me. My heart immediately began to race again. My breaths grew ragged and shallow.
Before I could find the words to reply, his strong hands closed around my hips. He lifted me onto the edge of the bed, slightly higher than the bench that he then kneeled on, perfectly aligning his mouth between my legs.
His tongue was gentle at first, wide and flat, the measured strokes interspersed with puffs of warm air as he carefully teased my sensitive places back into arousal. Those places still pulsed with the blissful feeling that walked the narrow line between pleasure and pain. He was patient, easing up when I whimpered, but never waiting long before returning with a slow, rapturous lick.
As soon as my sounds became more pleasure than pain, his hunger truly revealed itself. He became insatiable, hooking his arms around my thighs, gripping them in a dominant hold that he used to pry my legs farther apart so he could properly feast between them.
“So fucking sweet,” he panted, coming up briefly for air. His low voice vibrated over my skin. “So fucking delicious. You taste like the first orgasm I gave you. Which is perfect,” he added, in between quick, torturous lashes from the tip of his tongue, “because it means you taste like mine .”
Because I am , I wanted to reply. I’m yours , I’m yours, I’m yours —
But before I could speak, he had buried his face completely between my legs once more…and I could no longer form words.
I could only gasp as his hands reached high along my inner thighs and pressed my legs more firmly into the mattress, opening me more fully for him to devour.
I writhed beneath him as he ate, the waves of my second orgasm building quickly to crescendo. His strength was uncompromising as I rocked within those waves, holding me hostage until his mouth had sucked every last ounce of satisfaction from me.
The bed felt like it was shifting. My body tingled everywhere, floating in a state of perfect bliss. Yet, I was aware of him moving between my legs, positioning himself above me, sliding his pants lower and letting his cock spring free. Then my hands were moving, too, circling around the hard, impressive thickness of him. Feeling it throb beneath my grip as he drew close, so close—
His head tipped back. With a low, rumbling cry, he reached his climax, painting my chest with hot cum, the feel of it dripping over my tingling skin drawing out one last aftershock of my own orgasm.
As the last drops of his release trickled over me, he leaned down, his body still shaking slightly, and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead.
I used a throw blanket draped nearby to clean myself off. Then, exhausted, I curled onto my side and closed my eyes. They didn’t stay shut for long, though; as soon as I felt him moving again, I was wide awake once more, tracking his every motion as he went about cleaning himself up. Entirely, undeniably aware of him. I felt like a foolish, lovesick girl, but I just wanted to keep looking at him.
He came back to bed and laid down on his side, facing me. My hand found his, holding tightly to it until the room stopped whirling around us.
I don’t know how long we laid there.
I think I drifted off at some point, only stirring when I felt him shifting, his body nudging closer to mine.
“I don’t want to leave this room,” I whispered. “I don’t want to face the people outside.”
He slid an arm around my waist and rolled onto his back, pulling me against his bare chest, and said, “I’ll keep them away for as long as you want me to.”
It was what I wanted to hear. That was why he’d said it. And I also knew it was impossible—nothing would keep the monsters we faced away forever. He might have been willing to protect me from all of the questions and dangers pressing toward us, but he couldn’t slow the passage of time. And he couldn’t change the complicated history of us and our respective worlds, or the battles that had started raging long before we came into being.
Nevertheless, I let myself rest in our comforting lie for a few more minutes, listening to the quick pounding of his heart, imagining a very different sort of life for us both.
But then I slipped from his embrace and sat up slowly, taking deep, steadying breaths as I started to put myself back together.
He reluctantly followed my lead, rolling from the bed and going to the linen cabinet, returning and offering me a towel from it.
I cleaned myself more thoroughly. Put my dress, and everything underneath, back on properly. Pulled on my stockings and boots. Redid my braids.
Aleks watched me without speaking, without moving to put himself back together. His shirt remained in a crumpled heap on the floor. His pants still hung low on his hips. He ran a hand through his hair, smoothing it somewhat, but most of it still fell in disheveled waves around his face. A thin sheen of sweat glossed his chest, and all his edges were aglow from the bit of daylight creeping through the drawn curtains…or maybe from his own magic, stirring beneath his skin; it was hard to tell him apart from the sun in that moment.
I wanted to pull him back into the bed with me.
As much as he’d accomplished with his hands and tongue, I could only imagine what other parts of him could do.
But there were other things we had to focus on, so I swallowed hard and said, “Hand me my knife, please.”
He picked it up from the floor. It had nearly slipped free of its casing, and as his fingers pressed against the bit of exposed steel, he froze, his gaze briefly glazing over.
“…Are you okay?”
He blinked, smiling softly at me, as though he’d just woken up. “I’m fine,” he said, handing me the blade.
Odd , I thought. But I was too focused on what awaited me outside the room to think about much else.
I finished securing the knife back in its embroidered leather sheath, then forced myself to make my way to the door—though I stopped short of reaching for the handle.
Aleksander followed, wrapping his arms around me from behind, pressing his face into my hair and breathing comforting warmth over the curve of my neck. “We’ll figure everything out,” he promised.
I somehow managed a nod.
It was only after I’d left and started making my way down the hallway that the strangeness of his moment with the knife truly struck me—along with a potential explanation for it.
He hadn’t been able to see anything when we’d tried working our magic on this very same knife yesterday. But if I knew anything about this man, he’d likely spent the whole night trying to perfect this spell that had eluded him. Likely the whole morning, too.
Had he managed to uncover a glimpse of the future in that knife?
It was the only explanation I could think of for that horrified look that had briefly crossed his face.
But what had he seen?