Chapter 60 #2
“Nisien would be happy to stand beside her,” she added. “Not in front of her. And he cares about peace more than he hungers for glory.”
“True,” I conceded.
“The Assembly is trying to tear Gelida apart. If Maelric takes the throne, they’ll gain control of the kingdom.”
“And they’ll keep pushing outward until we all fall under their authority,” I added.
My response to Isca’s capture was easily predicted, particularly by Maeron. It was so obvious to me now. They were trying to force me to fight their bloody war for them, again.
As she nodded, a shadow passed over her face, the look in her eyes a mix of understanding and something heavier, something like shame. The expression vanished, but the cold ache it stirred in my chest stuck firm. Something was going on with her. I hoped she’d tell me soon.
She said, “A marriage between either Larethia or Darreth and Gelida could stop the fighting for all three kingdoms.”
“Diplomat indeed,” I said, but what I really thought was Queen. “Her personality?” I asked, voice still gravelly after that emotional scare. “We only briefly met as children during peace accord talks.”
Cursed gods knew Anwen was exactly Nisien’s type in appearance.
“She’s rough around the edges,” Isca said, a smile touching her lips. “A warrior through and through. But I like her, Emrys. What little she allowed me to see inside showed me an earnest woman truly trying to protect her people.”
I looked ahead at our war camp in the distance, weighing the path she’d set before me. “If you think it’s a good idea, I trust you. Let’s ask him, for the sake of peace.”
Her next words sounded more like an admission than anything, making what I’d sensed earlier feel all the worse. “Emrys, I don’t trust the Assembly at all.”
“You shouldn’t,” I growled. “The only good thing they’ve ever done is send you to Darreth.”
I’d hoped that would bring the smile back to her face, but she only frowned. “Wait, Emrys, before we go back… We need to talk.”
I stopped my horse and smiled—until I saw that her frown had only deepened. “Oh.” My chest pulled tight. “All right.”
She looked as though she were preparing to rip off a bandage before the wound had closed. “Before I speak, you need to understand this: Last night wasn’t about the information I’m about to share. Okay?”
I nodded, a pit yawning open in my stomach.
She let out a slow breath that tousled the strands of hair framing her face. “The Assembly sent me with a secondary goal beyond helping along the succession. They sent me…to get pregnant.”
The world dropped out from beneath my feet. Fire roared in my veins as ice crystallized in my lungs. The curse was tearing me apart.
Cursed gods. I had suspected this but hearing it was another thing altogether. My old fear roared back to life, its strength amplified by my refusal to acknowledge it for so long.
I’d thrown the accusation at her weeks ago, half-fearing it, half trying to drive her away.
In the weeks since, I’d dosed myself with the poison of believing that I’d been wrong about her purpose.
Then, when she told me there was nothing between her and Nisien, I completely dismissed the notion and let myself believe she cared.
Now that fragile hope shattered, and the shards ripped through my gut.
Was it all a lie?
“Of course they did,” I heard myself say, but my voice was warped and rimed with frost.
Of course that was the reason she had been sent. My obsession with her had started the first time I laid eyes on her. And the Assembly had been watching all along, trying to get something out of their favorite weapon since they no longer controlled me.
Hadn’t they told me that they wanted exactly this the same day I’d met Isca for the first time? After countless sleepless nights spent agonizing over the possibility, rotting me from the inside out, her admission still split me open.
“I…didn’t have a choice in coming,” she continued, voice trembling. “The chancellor made it clear I had to complete one of the two objectives. And at first, I did consider going through with the second. Especially when diplomacy was…failing those first weeks.”
Because I’d been running away from her, from everything. I’d been a coward.
Now I’d given her pieces of myself no one else had ever dared touch. I’d grown so desperate for everything she would offer me that I’d stopped thinking of the Assembly’s interest in sending her altogether.
My teeth ached from how hard I clenched them. My chest was so tight my heart might crack within it. I turned my head, forcing my expression back to stone, throwing up my mental walls with the movement. She couldn’t know what her words were doing to me.
“I thought it would save my family,” she whispered.
“But, Emrys, I abandoned all thoughts of bringing a child for them to control back to Caervorn a long time ago. Because I—” Her voice broke, and she looked at me with such sincerity, her next words almost made me break. “Because I fell in love instead.”
I choked on the shards of ice filling my lungs. She fell in love instead. Which meant the mission was real, but her heart had strayed. So she cared, but she still might have used me.
My voice was steady, but I was falling apart inside. “Then why did you never ask me for help?”
“You weren’t exactly approachable, Emrys.”
I laughed so loud it nearly tore my throat. Frost spread in widening cracks beneath my stallion’s hooves, and her mare danced violently away, as if even the animal understood I wasn’t safe. I wanted her to look away—to look anywhere but at me with that wounded gaze.
I dismissed the simple truth trying to emerge in my mind: she still cared for me. Because hope was more painful than betrayal. Better to break myself by pushing her away than risk opening my heart again.
“Say it plainly, Isca,” I said, voice gone hoarse from the despair tearing at my lungs. “You let me love you so you could breed a weapon for them. And I’ve gone and done exactly what they wanted.”
So stupid. I was so incredibly blind.
Her breath hitched. “I chose you. I stopped telling them anything months ago. And all I’ve gotten from the chancellor since have been thinly veiled threats.”
I latched onto the one thing that didn’t slice cleanly into my heart.
“So,” I said, letting the cold swallow my voice, “that’s why he sent a spy.”
Her tear-filled gaze whipped up to mine, fear now coloring it. “What?”
I couldn’t talk about the Assembly, not while I was being ripped in half from the inside. So I said, “He didn’t get the chance to tell me why he was spying on you before he died.”
Let her think I was nothing more than the beast again.
I wanted to rage. Unleash the magic inside me until the ground beneath my feet crumbled away in a landslide of my grief. Bury the Assembly in the rubble left behind, then tear the sky down so they could never touch her again.
But the curse wanted that. The magic wanted unending chaos if it couldn’t have her. If I gave in—if I as much as let my guard down against it for one second—she’d be gone forever.
So I swallowed my rage and let the chill spread through me.
Her words had reached inside my chest and torn my heart out, taking nearly every trace of life along with it. Now her delicate hands held it, pulsing in her grasp, leaving only the curse behind, beating behind my ribs where she should be.
And love still held me captive. It was the one cage I didn’t want to escape. Even in what felt like betrayal, my heart, my magic, my very soul refused to stop reaching for her.
“I told myself I could live with this possibility,” I admitted, swallowing hard so I could keep breathing. “Right up until the moment you made it true.”
With her head hanging low, she whispered, “I’m sorry, Emrys,” her voice barely audible. Her fingers clutched the reins so tightly her knuckles were white.
I almost wished I’d never heard her apology.
“Do you know what it feels like,” I rasped, “to go to bed every night with your thoughts completely consumed by another person, and then wake up wondering if everything between you the day before was lies?”
She shook her head. She understood the depths of human emotion far better than anyone else, but this she couldn’t understand.
I could show her. I could drop my walls and make her feel exactly how I felt… But that would’ve been a cruelty.
“You made me doubt everything, and still I wanted you. What is your plan now? To run with my child?”
“No,” she said, voice breaking on her insistence.
Her face had fallen, but fire burned in her eyes.
“I’ve been running toward you since that first night in the library.
I was just too much of a coward to admit the truth, but I would never—never—give the Assembly my child.
Not if I had even the smallest choice.” Her horse snorted and danced beneath her, stirred by her rising anger.
“But that’s the problem, Emrys. You forget that not all of us have your power.
I didn’t have the luxury of choosing freely. ”
Her voice shook despite her straight back. “I didn’t use you. I didn’t want to ruin this or hurt you. And I know I might not earn your forgiveness…but you needed to hear it.”
She shook with rage, and tears shimmered in her eyes. Gods, that hurt me more than her admission. Her hands were trembling on the reins. I despised myself for noticing, and the urge to steady them made me hate myself even more.
I nodded, unable to speak because my throat had closed so tight.
“Emrys?” she whispered. Her voice was so small.
I needed distance. But, gods help me, every part of me wanted to reach for her reins, drag her into my arms, and bury myself in her warmth. Yet I couldn’t. Not when the curse was coiled so tight it would break us both. Not when my chest was already split open and bleeding.
The pain was more profound than any blade could inflict. Maybe I could’ve been stronger, could’ve talked through it with her if I hadn’t given her my soul only the night before.
Now I couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t bear the weight of those big green eyes.
Believing her wouldn’t save me from this. It only made the wound deeper.
“We’re done speaking,” I said, because the truth had ruined me. “Let’s return to camp.” Even though every part of me wanted to stay right here until she somehow made it untrue. I forced out the coldness I’d used to keep her at arm’s length for so long, armor I thought I’d shed forever.
And before she could say another word, I dug my heels into my horse and rode forward. The frost of my anger followed me the entire way, freezing the summer grass.
I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. Because if I saw her—broken, beautiful, still reaching, still believing in me—I would’ve turned my horse and sped straight for Caervorn. I’d rain ruin on their heads until I was finally released from my suffering by death.
I wasn’t certain I could win against them alone. And that was what I was now.
Alone.