Chapter 44 #4
It wasn’t.
The receiving vault returned in pieces. Blood on the floor. Black lines closing around my feet. Kieran’s face when he understood what the operative had been trying to do.
Vareena saw the hesitation. “We don’t have to go far. The lower market is crowded during Solstice. There will be ward patrols everywhere.”
“That sounds suspiciously like you prepared your argument before asking.”
“I’ve met you.”
“Apparently everyone has decided they know what I’m going to do before I do it.” The words came out sharper than I intended. Vareena let them pass without mentioning Kieran. Instead, she looked down at her hands.
“I want one afternoon that has nothing to do with prophecy or old queens or whether somebody altered an archive twenty years ago.”
That silenced me. Vareena picked at a loose thread near the cuff of her dress. “We can eat something terrible from one of the stalls. You can complain about the prices. I’ll buy things I don’t need. Then we come back before dinner and everyone can return to being miserable.”
I smiled despite myself. “You’re paying for the food.”
“Done.”
“And if you drag me into another dress fitting, I’m leaving you there.”
“You say that now.”
“I mean it.”
Vareena tipped her head against mine.“Tomorrow?”
The ribbon brushed my cheek. “Tomorrow.”
She stayed there another few seconds, then straightened and glanced toward the hall. “Raiden is pretending he isn’t waiting for me.”
I followed her attention. He was. Badly. “You should go rescue him. Before Dax asks him anything worse.”
“Don’t stay out here too long. There’s a certain Shadowwielder trying to act like he isn’t waiting for a dance.” She pecked my cheek before leaving. I watched her cross back toward him, the pale gold ribbon moving between her shoulders.
Kieran did not ask me to dance until much later.
And Vareena had been right. I noticed him watching several times before that.
Once from beside Eiryx. Again while speaking with an older Shadow instructor.
Another time from across the hall while Damon was trapped between two Council representatives and looked ready to fake his own death to escape them.
But he never came over.
That bothered me enough that I refused to acknowledge it.
By the time the musicians paused before the final formal set, I stood with Emrin near one of the outer columns, trying to convince her to dance with Dax.
“He’s your brother.”
“That is precisely why I don’t want to.”
“He needs someone to keep him from asking Neseryn again.”
“There is no force in Alareth strong enough to save Dax from himself.”
A hand appeared beside mine. Runes winding across it. “May I have this dance, Menace?”
Emrin’s attention moved from his hand to my face. “I think I hear Lidia calling for me.” She was gone before I could blink.
Traitor.
I put my hand in Kieran’s, and his fingers closed around mine carefully, avoiding the healing cut across my palm. The touch brought last night back with humiliating clarity.
His room. His bed. You’re mine. His voice in my ear as he—I looked away before my face betrayed me.
Kieran’s eyes narrowed. “What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing.”
His thumb moved lightly over the side of my hand. “Dangerous answer.”
“I learned it from you.”
“That should concern you.” We joined the floor. The dance was slower than the earlier ones, enough that people stood closer and the steps relied on long, measured movements rather than constant turns. Kieran knew them. Naturally.
“You can dance.”
“I can.”
“That is irritating.”
“You say that about most things I do.”
“Most things you do are irritating.” His mouth curved.
The tension between us had changed since last night.
It wasn’t gone, and I didn’t want it gone.
There were too many things unresolved between us for that to be believable.
I still hated how easily he decided fear gave him permission to choose for me.
He still believed there were circumstances where he would do it again.
But his hand was warm at my waist, my fingers resting against the runes visible above his collar, and tonight neither of us was asking the other to become easier.
The thought came too close to another one.
I let the music carry me through the next turn instead.
Kieran guided me around another couple before bringing me back against him.
Over his shoulder, I found Vareena and Raiden dancing again.
She had apparently decided his first attempt deserved a second.
Dax stood beside Lidia near the edge of the floor, re-enacting some portion of his dance with Neseryn for anyone unfortunate enough to listen.
Emrin had ended up beside Eiryx, who held a drink she had clearly put into his hand.
I smiled.
Kieran watched me instead of them. “What are you thinking?”
“That I don’t want tonight to end.” The answer came before I could make it smaller.
Those green-grey eyes softened. “I don’t either.”
“I wish we could have one night. Just one night without prophecies, without magic books who know no boundaries, without people trying to kill one of us, and no lies.”
Kieran drew me closer. My injured hand rested against his shoulder, the other near his neck where the formal jacket stood open.
“For once,” he said, “let tomorrow belong to tomorrow.”
“Is that you speaking or the man who threatened to lock me out of half the Sanctum?”
“Both.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You came to my room anyway.”
Heat climbed into my face. “You’re very brave saying that in a crowded hall.”
“I don’t care who hears me.”
I looked at him. He meant it.
A few days ago, whatever existed between us had belonged to ruined rings and private rooms. Now Dax had watched Kieran touch me. Vareena knew where I had slept. Lidia had asked whether the entire Shadow wing knew we were sleeping together.
And Kieran was dancing with me in the center of the Solstice Hall as though hiding had become pointless. Maybe it had.
“Vareena wants me to go to the lower market tomorrow.”
His brows drew together at once.
I pointed a finger at him. “Please think before you speak and ruin this.”
“I was just deciding how many ward patrols cover the lower market during Solstice.”
“She wants one normal afternoon.”
That stopped him.
I hadn’t meant to say it so plainly. “Come with us.” He missed half a step. Kieran Nyxara, who could fight on a collapsing floor without losing balance, missed a step because I invited him to the market. I laughed.
He recovered immediately. “You’re serious.”
“A thousand percent.”
“With Vareena.”
“And whoever else gets dragged along.”
“You want me to spend an afternoon browsing market stalls.”
“I want you to spend time with me without anyone bleeding.” I considered it. “Come to breakfast first.”
“Breakfast.”
“With everyone.” Kieran’s shoulders drew back a fraction, as though breakfast with my friends presented a greater threat than hostile Shadow magic. I laughed again. “I have watched you walk directly into hostile Shadow magic without making that face.”
“I don’t generally eat with seven people at once.”
“You’ve fought beside them.”
“That is different.”
“You’ve watched Dax nearly die twice.”
Kieran looked past me toward the group. Dax had managed to drag Emrin onto the floor and was deliberately dancing badly enough to make her angry. Lidia was shouting silent instructions from the edge. Raiden and Vareena had abandoned formal steps entirely.
When Kieran looked back at me, the humor in his face had faded.
He understood what I was asking. It wasn’t breakfast. Not really. I was asking him to sit beside my friends when no one needed him to train anyone or keep them alive.
To belong somewhere with me.
“All right.”
I studied him. “You mean that?”
“You’re making me reconsider.”
“No. You agreed. There is no turning back now.”
“I’m beginning to understand how Vareena convinces you to do things.”
“She manipulates me.”
“You mean like you just did to me?”
“Mine is charming though.”
“Debatable.” The music shifted around us, and his hand moved a little higher along my back.
Then Kieran smiled. Not the small, repressed smile he used when he was trying to keep his mask on. This one was real and open enough that it changed his entire face.
I had seen pieces of it before, but never this.
For a second, he looked younger than the man who knew how to break blood trackers because he had learned at twelve. Not harmless. Kieran would never be harmless, but happy. With me.
I lifted my hand toward his face and loathed the sting as I caught myself just before it landed on his jaw. There were too many people.
Kieran caught my fingers before I could lower them and pressed them against the center of his chest, over the dark lines of his runes. His heartbeat sat beneath my palm.
The hall blurred around us.
Love rose into my throat.
I kept it there.
Near midnight, attendants began passing small glasses of Solstice wine through the hall.
Everyone gathered beneath the central lanterns for the final toast. The five affinity flames had burned together for hours, their colors overlapping high above us until it became difficult to see where one ended and another began.
Vareena found me first, Raiden coming with her. Dax and Emrin joined from the opposite side, and Lidia squeezed between them with a drink she claimed was hers despite Dax insisting he had watched her take it from his hand.
Eiryx ended up beside Kieran.
For once, nobody had to search for anyone.
We were simply there.
Dax lifted his glass. “To surviving the Arcane Sanctum.”
Emrin turned her head slowly. “Do you want it to hear you?”
Dax lowered the glass. “That is fair.”
“Try again.”
He considered. “To not actively giving the Sanctum a reason to kill us.”
“That is literally so much worse.”
“It’s more respectful.”
Lidia raised her own glass. “To Solstice, before he gets us cursed.”
Raiden touched his glass to hers. “To tomorrow.”
Vareena looked at him. The softness that crossed her face was enough that I nearly looked away. Then she lifted her cup. “To tomorrow.”