23. Chapter 23 #3
“Of course it is.” I sigh impatiently. Behind every door I need unlocked lies… Thorin.
Right then, the temperature in the room drops and the lamps flicker. Riven’s eyes close for half a second, and I know before I turn. My body knows. My magic knows. The fucking shadows that I thought were regular shadows. Of course. All of the shadows here know.
Thorin is here.
* * *
“How interesting,” I say, keeping my eyes on the torn page. “Speak of the secretive tyrant and he magically appears.”
Behind me, Thorin’s voice cuts through the archive, quiet and cold. “Careful, Lyra.”
I turn slowly. He stands at the end of the aisle, dressed not for training but for whatever meeting I have clearly interrupted by existing.
His black coat is fastened with golden clasps, his hair slightly disordered as if he has run a hand through it too many times, and for once he looks less amused than displeased.
Good. I’m also displeased. We can share the displeasure.
Brother Rivero looks as if he might crawl under the table and live there. “Your Majesty.”
Riven bows his head. “Sire.”
Thorin’s gaze does not leave mine. “Leave us.”
The shadows at his feet stir, then rise in slow, silent ribbons, swallowing the light as they coil around us. Within moments, Brother Rivero and Riven disappear behind a wall of living darkness. I can see them, but I know they can’t see us.
Brother Rivero gathers his apple and absolutely none of his dignity before hurrying away. Riven hesitates.
Thorin does not look at him. “Riven.”
Riven’s jaw tightens, but he obeys. The archive doors close a few moments later, and the sound echoes too loudly through the shelves. Now it’s only us, and the torn prophecy. And far too many shadows.
Thorin walks toward the table slowly, his gaze dropping to the open book. The light from the blue lamps catches the hard line of his face, the exhaustion beneath his eyes, the displeasure he does not bother hiding.
“You were told certain sections were restricted.”
“This is the public archive.”
“You were looking for something that was not.”
“How tragic that curiosity led me astray. Oops…”
His eyes lift. “Curiosity has led you into danger more times than I care to count.”
My laugh is sharp and humorless. “Then stop putting secrets where I can reach them.”
“I did.”
“The restricted archives?”
“Yes.”
I stare at him. He doesn’t look remotely ashamed.
“You are unbearable,” I say. “When were you going to tell me? I thought I blocked my first visit from your memories but apparently, you’re always ten steps ahead of everyone else.”
“How unfortunate for everyone who attempts to hide things from me.” His eyes linger on mine. “You should not have come here.”
“I couldn’t sleep. And I needed answers, because you never give me any. ”
“That is not an explanation.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.” I pull a line from his book, but he doesn’t look pleased about it.
His jaw tightens, and I feel a small, petty satisfaction until his gaze drops briefly to my hands. I look down too late. My fingers are trembling.
Damn him. I clasp them behind my back.
Thorin notices, because he notices everything. Even the things you conceal in your mind.
“What did you read?”
“You know what I read, Thorin.”
“I want to hear what you think you read.”
“That is the most kingly sentence I’ve ever heard, and I despise it.”
“Lyra.” I hate the way he says my name when he is done being patient. I want his softness back.
What I hate more is that it works.
I turn back to the book, because looking at him makes thinking harder than it should. “Silver hair is not inherited.”
“No.” The answer comes too easily, and finally, it’s the truth. I can tell.
My pulse jumps as I look at him. “You knew.”
“Yes.”
“Queen Seraphine is not my ancestor.”
“No.”
“So why show me her portrait?”
“I didn’t show you her portrait. You found it.”
“Don’t be difficult, Thorin. Now is not the time”
“I’m being accurate.”
“You’re being an ass.”
His mouth twitches, and I want to hit him with the book. I think it’s large enough to make an impact.
“You knew the silver hair was a manifestation,” I say. “A mark. A sign. Whatever dramatic word the dead scholars preferred.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you were not ready.”
The phrase hits the air between us like a spark to dry grass.
I step closer, anger rising fast enough to burn away some of the fear. “If you say that to me one more time, I’m going to punch you.”
“You would prefer the truth given all at once?”
“I would prefer being treated like the person the truth belongs to.”
Something shifts in his face. But it’s not enough. It’s never enough.
But enough for me to know the words struck.
Good. Let them.
He moves around the table, and I refuse to step back even though the space between us shrinks with every slow, deliberate step. His shadows slide beneath the shelves, silent as spilled ink, curling along the floorboards before stilling near my boots.
“You think truth belongs to the person it concerns,” he says.
“Yes.”
“That is a lovely belief.”
“It is a correct belief.”
“I think it’s a dangerous one. Everything is not meant for everyone. Some truths belong to those who are doomed to carry the burden.”
I sigh so dramatically that his eyebrows shoot up. “Everything is dangerous with you. Just speak true, Thorin.”
His gaze holds mine. “Yes, everything is dangerous with me, muya quenati.”
At least he does not deny that.
The air between us feels too thin suddenly.
I am aware of the table against my hip, the open book beside me, the torn prophecy, the quiet shelves rising around us like witnesses.
I am aware of Thorin’s height, his nearness, the way he looks at me not with anger exactly, but with a restraint that seems harder for him than rage.
“Why me?” I ask. The question slips out before I can armor it properly.
It sounds too honest.
Thorin stills.
For one moment, the entire room seems to still with him.
“Because when I found you—” He stops.
The words cut off so abruptly that my breath catches.
When I found you. Not when Onyx found you. Not when you were brought here.
When I found you.
The room tilts slightly.
“What does that mean?”
His expression closes. “No.”
I step closer. “No, you don’t get to start that sentence and then lock it away.”
“I said too much.”
“You said half of a thing. That is not too much. That is exactly enough to make me furious.”
“Then be furious with me, Lyra.”
“I am! I am so fucking furious!”
“I know. I also know that your language is awful, sweetheart.”
His calm nearly undoes me. So does the word sweetheart. Gods, Lyra. Focus.
Beneath his calm, I can see the cost of stopping himself. The tension in his jaw. The way his hand curls once at his side before relaxing. The shadows shifting restlessly around us.
He wants to tell me and that realization lands strangely. It’s like a key turning once inside a lock and refusing to open the door.
“You knew about me before I came here,” I say.
“Well of course.”
“How long?” I stare at him with balled fists.
His eyes move over my face, then to my hair. The look is not possessive, not exactly. It’s worse. Reverent in a way that frightens me.
“Long enough.”
I laugh because if I don’t, I may throw something. “I hate that answer.”
“I know. You hate a great many things.”
“I hate that you keep saying just enough to make me want more.”
His gaze darkens. “So do I.”
The words steal the next breath from my lungs and for once, I don’t know what to say.
Thorin seems to realize it at the same time I do, because something in his expression changes. Not triumph. Not amusement. Something quieter. More dangerous.
As he reaches past me toward the torn page, his sleeve brushes my arm. The contact is slight. Barely anything. But my magic reacts as if he has pressed his mouth to my skin.
A roaring sensation fills my ears, moving through my veins and rushing down my arms before I can control it. The lamplight flickers and shadows under the table stir. Thorin’s hand pauses beside the page, close enough to mine that our fingers nearly touch.
I should move but I don’t. Neither does he.
“The rest is in the restricted archives,” I say, though my voice is lower than I intend.
“Yes.”
“And you’re keeping it from me.”
“Yes.”
“Because I’m not ready?”
“Because once you read it, you cannot unread it.”
I look up at him but he is already looking at me and I notice that the space between us has become unforgivably small.
“You don’t get to decide what breaks me,” I whisper.
His eyes sharpen, and for a moment I think I have angered him. But the emotion that moves across his face isn’t anger. It’s pain.
“I know what breaks people,” he says quietly.
The words should sound arrogant. But they don’t. They sound like memory.
My anger falters slightly.
“Is that supposed to make me trust you?” I ask.
“No.”
“Then what?”
His gaze drops to my mouth and everything inside me goes still.
Perhaps the entire cursed continent stops moving, for all I know.
It feels possible in that moment. It feels as though the world has narrowed to the small space between us, to the warmth of him, to the cedar-and-smoke scent that always clings to his skin, to the dangerous softness entering his face as his hand lifts slowly.
He touches my hair first. Not my face. My hair.
A single silver curl has fallen forward over my shoulder, and he gathers it between his fingers with such unexpected gentleness that my throat tightens.
His thumb moves over the strand, not like he is admiring something pretty, but like he is touching proof of something he has been afraid to believe.
I should step away and slap his hand aside for keeping things from me.
I should say something clever and vicious enough to carve distance between us.
Instead, I stand there like a fool while the Shadow King touches my hair in the middle of the archives, and every part of me that should hate him goes terribly, dangerously quiet.
“What?” I ask. It comes out softer than I want.