Chapter 29
Our fight carved a hollow wound in our bond, a tender and mottled bruise to match the one on my injured knee.
Vaeron hadn’t returned to our room after fleeing like I’d stabbed him.
And as we rolled into a new town, he didn’t even acknowledge me when I said his name.
Merely tossed a key into my lap and stood aside as I lowered myself to the ground with far less grace than normal.
He’d vanished with the wagon without a single glance back.
His absence lingered, long enough that the innkeep had asked if I planned on going to my room. Heat scorching my cheeks, I struggled up the stairs with crutches and magic, tunic soaked in sweat by the time I threw myself onto the bed.
I groaned when my bladder twinged.
Should have used the privy while I was in the tavern.
Body aching, I shuffled into a more comfortable position and stared at the ceiling. Closed my eyes and begged sleep to swallow me.
A knock sounded on the door, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. A moment later, it swung inward, revealing my mate carrying a tray of food and vials of poppy.
Still, he didn’t look at me. Just set the tray down like he was a jailer and I was his prisoner.
“Vaeron,” I said, using his real name like a plea.
“Issaraeth,” he corrected, and it stung more than I cared to admit.
I stuck my tongue in the side of my cheek and considered my next move.
That kiss had terrified me…because it felt so right.
Like the stars had finally aligned in the sky.
Like the clearest of crystals, dug from the bottom of a pristine lake.
Like the lushest of gardens, blooming from unyielding care.
My mate had hurt me in so many ways. If I kissed him like that, allowed him to touch me, wouldn’t that be betraying the Elessarum? My parents? Heraphia and Zuriel?
I was stretched between this bond and my own beliefs, like a dancer mid-starleap with no safe place to land.
Two sides of me tugging so endlessly exhaustion was the only harbor available.
And then there was my plan to manipulate him to protect myself and gain power over him, so that I might eventually change the course of the realm.
He rounded the bed and handed me a milky white vial. I held onto it as he settled at the foot and tugged off my shoes. They hit the hard floor with jarring thuds.
I hadn’t undressed, given my fatigue from merely making it to the room. The wrap still bound my knee in place, preventing it from moving. He reached for it, tugging the ties loose.
“Look at me.” I leaned forward and placed my hands over his. “Please.”
He stilled, dragging in a shuddering breath. For a moment I thought he’d refuse. Get up and leave me here.
But he lifted his head.
And his eyes were glacial. No emotion. No warmth. No amusement.
Just…detachment.
DUTY ABOVE ALL
The image of his scar appeared in the forefront of my mind. Was that what this was? Was he only in this room right now because he had an obligation to me, as his mate?
“Why are you here?” I wanted him to say it. To know that the lust between us the previous night was nothing more than something driven by the chain linking our fates.
“To help you with your knee,” he stated tonelessly.
“No. Why are you really here?” I pressed.
Irritation nipped at my nerves when I was met with stony silence.
I needed to know if the male who kissed me like he would die without one remained behind the orbs of ice.
“You have no obligation to heal me. In fact, it would serve you and your sister better if I couldn’t do more than limp ever again.
There’d be little chance of me running.”
“You could still fly,” he pointed out.
A scoff slipped out of me. “Do you plan to clip my wings?”
He looked away. “Not unless I am compelled.”
I jerked my hands back, nails biting into my palms. That was the language of soldiers. Of those who simply did what they were told. Who simply followed orders without questioning their consequences.
Vaeron was dangerous, especially to me.
Maybe he didn’t mean it; maybe he did. With his capacity to freeze and thaw at a moment’s notice, anything was possible.
A soul-deep ache bloomed behind my ribs. I was hurting, bleeding on the inside, so fucking much. Why couldn’t he see that? Why was I shouldering all the blame here?
I didn’t raise my voice. Didn’t yell. Merely asked him, each word measured and even, because I was too tired to fight the pain alone. “What have I done to you that is so wrong, Vaeron? Because I’m not ecstatic about being mated to the Issaraeth when I have lived my whole life as Elessarum?”
He exhaled, long and slow enough that I realized he was calculating his next words. “I see your point.” He finished unwrapping my knee but said nothing else.
“You didn’t answer my question.” I crossed my arms, glaring at him.
He kept his focus on my leg. Hands glided down my calf and wrapped around my ankle. Energy crackled along my skin from the softest touch. When his bare flesh brushed against mine, the bond purred, twisting into a knot that was impossible to untangle.
I wanted to tug it apart so I wouldn’t be stuck in this whirlwind. Hate, desire, anger, fear, grief. Each was a lightning bolt that flashed through me as Vaeron pushed my knee into a bend.
Still, he did not reply. Did not answer a single thing I had asked.
I wished Heraphia were here so I could talk to her about all of this. She would know exactly what to say.
“I miss my parents. I miss my friends. I miss…me.” The confession slipped out before I could stop it. My whole body trembled, like the admission had cracked something loose inside me.
Vaeron went preternaturally still.
“When the war started, we had to hide, so we left the place I’d called home for decades.
My power placed everyone around me in danger.
We moved constantly. Sometimes, people looked at me like I was a burden.
Heraphia too. We were the most important ones.
When we got word of a hunter’s approach or one of the Seers had a vision of it, it was always us that were prioritized to move to safety. Do you know what that’s like?”
His chest expanded, but otherwise, my mate was like a glassy lake.
Hot salt scalded my cheeks. “You don’t survive something like that without crushing pieces of yourself.
I had to learn to let it go, otherwise it would have consumed me.
And when I lost my parents?” My voice cracked.
A sob wrenched out of my throat. “All I had was Heraphia and Zuriel. But each day felt like a countdown to the moment we’d be caught.
I have lived in fear for so long. I don’t remember what it’s like to not sleep with one eye open.
To not look over my shoulder every time I leave the house. To breathe and feel free.”
Maybe I never will. Maybe this pain is all the Goddess would ever gift me.
That finally got him to lift his head. But the haunted, harrowed look in his eyes made me wish he hadn’t.
“Freedom is a concept for the naive. We’re all shackled one way or another.”
I scoffed. “And what, pray tell, has bound you? You are male. Noble. Powerful.”
“Not what. Who.” Vaeron set my leg down.
With practiced, cold precision, he unbuttoned his tunic, revealing the words etched over his heart.
Light from the window spilled over it, casting the raised letters in sharp relief.
It was no tattoo; each rune was a scar. “My father carved this into my flesh as a constant reminder of what I was bred to do. But that’s not all.
You see, my magic is a derivation of his.
But while I Command externally, he had the ability to manipulate one’s very will.
He dug inside my mind and planted rotten seeds of his own desires.
And that was before I swallowed the magic-filled blood of a Demon.
After? Well, the former Herr R?viel forged me into the weapon he wanted. ”
The steel edge of his voice didn’t waver. Didn’t break. Horror wrapped around my ribs and squeezed.
“I lost the freedom of being myself long ago. I am bound to my Command. I have nothing and no one outside of that.” A muscle feathered in his jaw as he held my gaze.
“Had. Or so I thought for a fleeting moment. Until you shattered that illusion. Now the sentiment is the same once again. I am here because it is my obligation, as your mate, to take care of you. Whether you want me or not.”
Because for him, duty would always defeat desire.
An ache, so acute I thought I’d punctured a lung, dug between my ribs. It took a sharply inhaled breath to realize it wasn’t my own. Vaeron’s walls had crumbled to dust as he bared the most vulnerable shards of his soul. He wasn’t hiding anything.
Even his own grief over how I’d treated him.
“I hear you, Sylaira. I am the villain in your eyes. The monster who always lurked, just out of sight, ready to take everything from you. Hate me all you want. I will continue to be by your side, because there is nowhere else I can be.” He flattened a palm over his chest, right where his bond lived. A mirror position to my own.
I pressed my hand over my magic, feeling the hard pound of my heart alongside it.
“There’s nowhere else I want to be. But I may not get a choice once we return to Sivy.
I hope this Goddess-gifted magic can accept that.
It seems to have a mind of its own.” None of the seriousness Vaeron wore like a cloak lifted, but the barest twitch of his lips told me he was trying to make light of our heavy situation.
The chain yanked us into proximity, time and time again, begging us to touch, to kiss, to do anything that would lead to us having sex and solidifying what our Radiant Mother had already deemed to be true.
Perhaps we had more in common than I was prepared to admit. Perhaps he was as much a prisoner as me. Perhaps the abuse of his father had him believing that he had no other choices than the ones he made.
And those glimmers of good he’d offered me? The rescue of Ilae’s clutch, the removal of tithes in his svaethi, the kindness he’d shown the first innkeeper, it all made me think that possibly, deep down, he wasn’t as evil as I’d once thought.
Centuries of life tended to make one complicated. I had no shortage of that in myself either.
But if he wasn’t evil, if he wasn’t a monster…what did that make me? Cruel, for plotting to gain power over him and manipulate him for my own gain?
I had committed no violence, and yet, I had done exactly what his father had.
The thought churned bile in my gut.
“Thank you. For sharing all of that. For acknowledging my pain,” I murmured.
He held my gaze then, allowing me to see all the facets of him. I hated that part of me wanted to lean forward and rest my head against his chest, just to see if the beat of his heart could drown out the chaos in my mind.
But I couldn’t.
Because if I did, I couldn’t lie to him—or myself—anymore.
So, instead, I leaned back.
And Vaeron walked away.