Chapter 61
Isca
Emrys rode just ahead of me, shoulders rigid, back a wall. The distance between us was only a dozen feet, but it felt like a chasm I might never cross. My hands ached from gripping the reins too tightly.
As if holding on could prevent me from falling apart…
He’d turned from me so abruptly. My confession had changed his I trust you back to the old coldness I’d never wanted to return to. That empty look.
I couldn’t stand it. My heart had long ago surrendered to him, but now it felt like it was drowning—choked by the dread and guilt that had been rising in me for weeks.
I’d meant to tell him after he’d returned from his ill-fated parley with the Gelidian general, before everything fell apart, before I was taken. But that general was dead now, and I’d missed my chance.
Our night together by the river should’ve been my undoing, not my reprieve. But I’d been too lost in him, too lost in the warmth of his touch, to remember the cost. And now, with the truth between us, I feared I’d traded one night of belonging for a lifetime of his absence.
My mother’s warnings about thoughtlessness echoed now, cruelly clear. He’d said he loved me, yes…but would that love survive this?
He was a prince, and I was a…nothing. A fake diplomat who should’ve been wearing rags instead of riches.
And I’d broken his heart.
Every time I thought of speaking—his name, an apology, anything—the memory of his pained expression when I confessed stopped me cold. Yet I still wished I could force the words out, reach out for him one more time, even if he turned away again.
I’d known what I was going to say would hurt him. But knowing didn’t prepare me for watching him retreat into himself, for the weight of his silence pressing down on me until I could barely draw breath.
This truth was supposed to free us. Instead, it had left me listless, untethered to anything I was before and anything I might become. And maybe it had freed me of my lies, but that freedom might have lost me Emrys.
My family and I would be safe until the Assembly determined whether I was pregnant. If I was…I’d be their prisoner for the rest of my life.
Rage warred with my grief. The Assembly could work to make everyone’s lives better with their might, but they were only working toward their own twisted ambitions—anyone who got in their way be damned.
I’d walked into Chancellor Maeron’s office a scared woman without choices.
Walking out of it, I’d sworn I wouldn’t make myself an easy victim.
But now, I faced the loss of my heart, my magic’s other half, my soulmate—everything that made me whole.
All because I’d been too afraid to tell him the truth about what they’d forced me to do.
And I’d done it to myself.
I should’ve known better. Born with the gift of empathy, I had no excuse for my delay, had no excuse for overlooking the poor timing of my confession.
I should’ve told him a month ago—before our first kiss.
Or even before that, on that fateful night in the library when he’d first voiced his suspicions.
Now the war camp rose in the distance, with dinner fires flickering against canvas and steel.
Soldiers were silhouettes in the growing dark, faint voices drifting over the open field.
The familiar noise should’ve comforted me, but it only amplified my torment—life went on while I rode behind the man I’d just broken.
My heart twisted at the faint tremor in his arms and the subtle way his jaw clenched. The curse fed on his anger, his volatility. Every drop of pain I’d poured into him was fuel for it.
By the time we reached the outskirts of camp, my throat burned from holding back words that he’d made clear he didn’t want to hear. We arrived to alarmed shouts that turned to cheers as soon as they recognized us.
Emrys dismounted without looking at me, issuing clipped orders to a waiting officer before striding off, bootfalls resounding on the dry earth with finality. He was throwing himself into command, into anything that didn’t have to do with me.
I’d thought I’d changed. I’d thought Emrys had taught me how to stand tall, how to be more than a frightened bird waiting in a predator’s shadow. But all I’d done was spread my wings for a moment, only to fall to the ground the instant I flew alone.
Maybe I wasn’t brave or clever…or even changed at all. Maybe I was only pretending—just as I’d pretended to be a diplomat, a woman who deserved him.
Frozen on my horse, I missed him more than I felt the camp’s emotions until I heard a familiar voice.
“Isca!”
Before I could blink, Catrin’s arms were around me. Her warmth, her joy at my return were almost unbearable after how cold I’d grown inside.
Her laughter trembled with relief as she pulled back to look at me, eyes bright with unshed tears. “You’re safe. Thank the gods, you’re safe.”
I clung to that truth. I was safe. Not alone. And yet, in the press of soldiers and campfires, I’d never felt more abandoned.
While he barked orders across the camp, I slipped into what had been our tent and moved my sleeping roll back to the one I’d shared with Catrin.
I couldn’t bear being rejected by him a second time.
Especially not in the space that had been just for the two of us, where our intimacy had finally taken that first leap, where he’d taught me that I could soar in his arms.
I looked around for Tegil’s osprey, hardly remembering where I’d seen it last, but came up short. It was nowhere to be found.
I’d lost it too.
It was too much.
For a few minutes, I wallowed in self-inflicted misery…until Catrin’s voice broke through the fog, calling out my name.
She was sitting at the fire with Adyn when I finally emerged from Emrys’s tent, eyes puffy, face red. Emrys stood several campfires away, yet despite the distance, he saw me, and his shoulders visibly tensed. I quickly looked away, but I felt his eyes on me.
Catrin rose, but I just shook my head and ducked into the tent. I needed to cry some more and not speak another word until the sun rose. Because right then, I felt like the darkest part of the night, lost in the starless abyss of misery.
I wished my magic could mend my weary soul, but I couldn’t affect my own emotions the way I could affect others’. All I had left was bone-deep exhaustion and the heavy weight of regret to drag me into sleep.
Catrin tried to pull me out of the darkness, to get me to talk, but I couldn’t stomach any discussion while I had to stare at the cold rampart his shoulders made in front of me.
Emrys barely spoke beyond necessity. The men brought him reports and questions; he gave answers with the sharp efficiency of a man who no longer trusted his own temper.
He ate at other fires and disappeared as soon as the sun set.
The first night I awoke to the tug of my magic reaching out for his and felt him lingering near my side of the tent.
But when I opened my eyes, there was nothing.
A dream then. No, a nightmare. I couldn’t dare hope it was true, because hoping that he still cared for me would hurt, and Emrys was a man built to break hope.
I struggled to eat, failing more often than not. I deserved his coldness, but this was a new type of pain. That he might never look at me the same way again was hollowing me out, breath by breath.
The next morning, I was a walking ball of gloom, my mood as gray as the sky right before a winter storm.
Around me, the men moved like ghosts, their gazes fixed on some distant point.
I didn’t realize their low spirits were a consequence of my magic lashing out of me in waves until Catrin burst out crying on horseback.
I was doing harm simply by existing.
The second night, I felt his magic trailing along the edges of our camp when my guards accompanied me to relieve myself before sleep.
This indignity I gave in to without complaint.
I thought about looking for him, about following the trail of magic to see where he’d hidden himself, but that might only end up with me repeating the same mistake that had seen a scout’s head sliced in two.
Was he simply not sleeping? Was Emrys patrolling all night long then leading the ride all day as well? The agony he put himself through was too much.
That same night while he was out, I left a note in his tent, pinned by a pretty stone I’d slipped into my pocket from the riverbank we’d made love beside.
Don’t let my cowardice break you, Emrys. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known. I’ll say it a thousand times if that’s what it takes. I’m sorry.
At dawn, the stone lay on my bedroll. There was no note attached, but his magic lingered in the air. He’d visited while I slept.
The silence left behind was deafening. Maybe he didn’t believe me. Maybe he never would.
His magic lashed out when he thought no one would notice.
He repeatedly froze the ground beneath Arth’s hooves, and the air around him would shimmer with fresh heat when the curse slipped its leash.
My fingers itched to reach out, to help him, but I was too afraid of making things worse.
Even broken, he continued to protect those around him.
I would endure it, and when we reached Tir Darreth, Nisien would help me return home.
The men gave no sign, though they must’ve noticed the shift in our demeanor. It was possible they attributed it all to the hardships we’d endured to return. But it was more likely that they saw their Prince Stormdan returned in place of the Emrys they’d had for only a short while.
When the towers of the castle rose in the distance, dread settled heavily in my chest. I hadn’t written to Chancellor Maeron in weeks. I’d sacrificed everything for my family’s safety, but what if it was all in vain? What if I’d lost Emrys and my family both?
Yet relief swept through the soldiers at the sight. It was bright and fierce but tinged with exhaustion all the same. It crashed into me before I could brace for the flood of emotion swelling my chest.
Safety. Familiar ground. Home. Because that was what Tir Darreth had become to me.
I opened myself wide to their emotions, to drink their relief in so it could drown my grief.
That helped, but seeing scaffolds climbing up the side of the crumbling western slope gave me my first real sense of hope in days.
Men swarmed the area, adding stone and mortar where Emrys’s volatility had damaged the glacis and castle foundation above.
I hoped they were able to take a look into the ruins we’d fallen into—I still wanted to know if there was a connection to Emrys’s curse down there.
My throat tightened. I knew he was having the problem looked into, but I didn’t realize he was actively working on a solution. So like him, always acting in the background, never requesting the spotlight but moving the very earth around him all the same.
And that was the cruelest wound of all—his enduring care for everything without asking to be thanked for it.
I pressed a hand to my chest, trying to hold back the flood of gratitude, love, and loss as they collided. I swayed in my saddle until a whisper of magic pushed me back in place.
That small kindness undid me.
I bit my lip so hard I could taste the coppery tang of blood, forcing down a sob. But a faint whimper escaped all the same.
I felt as much as saw Emrys’s gaze snap back.
The air crackled with unspoken words as our eyes met, an eternity of waiting compressed into a glance.
I thought that was it, a last goodbye. But then his chin flicked toward the steps.
That simple gesture cut through the emotional fog settling in my chest and sent my heart racing.
I looked up, expecting to see Nisien and the castle staff. I was already wearing the forced smile they’d need to see so I could greet them then disappear as quickly as possible.
They were there. But they weren’t alone.
The sight shattered me into a million tiny pieces. I gasped like I’d been struck with a blade. Standing there in the courtyard, alive, unbroken, and radiant with relief when they saw me were my mother, my father, and Tegil.
I was off my horse, knees nearly giving out as I slid down from the saddle. Tears blurred the world until the only shapes I could see were the ones I’d dreamed of every sleepless night: my mother’s smile, my brother laughing, my father’s steady strength.
I’d traded my heart for their safety, but Emrys had borne the cost. He’d saved them, quietly and faithfully, despite my betrayal.
The sob finally tore free from my raw throat. I stumbled into my father’s arms, nearly knocking him over in my haste. The only thing that kept him upright was a new leg that was humming with magic.
A gift.
“Papa, your leg.” I tried to laugh through my tears as he hugged me so tight I could scarcely breathe. Mama and Tegil joined in.
With puffed-up pride, he grumbled, “This one holds better than the real one ever did,” though his eyes were wet too.
They were safe. Safe from the Assembly. Safe because of him. And I had nothing left to give him but a broken apology he would never believe.
Catrin brushed my shoulder in farewell as she headed toward the castle’s ironbound doors. The weight of saying goodbye to her caused the tears to flow even more freely.
Over my mother’s shoulder, I caught sight of Nisien. His smile, bright as the sun, mirrored the happiness that seemed to pour from him. He must’ve been playing host to my family while he waited for our return.
If things worked out with Anwen, she’d be a lucky woman.
Next to him was Emrys. For the briefest moment, his eyes touched mine. And for an instant, warmth flickered in his gaze—then exhaustion, and finally sorrow.
“You’ll want time with your family,” he said, voice a low rumble, face carved from stone.
He looked away quickly, his tone snapping like a whip as he addressed the men standing before him. “The horses, our gear, then your comforts. In that order. Am I understood?”
A chorus: “Yes, Stormdan!”
His gaze lingered on me one last time, two heartbeats of warmth, enough to spark that fragile hope again, before he turned away, vanishing into the role of warrior prince once more.
And I was left standing between the two halves of my heart: the family that was now safe, and the man I’d lost.