CHAPTER 25
Islam the door to my chamber hard enough that the frame rattles.
“Have an awful, terrible day… seven hells…” I mutter under my breath as I kick off my boots. “He’s such an arrogant ass.”
The room is quiet again, but my mind isn't. It keeps returning to that smile he gave me after I practically announced the details of whatever the hell exists between us in front of his Captain, Lieutenant, and half the Shadow Guard.
I should be embarrassed. I’m not. Goddess divine, I truly hate him. I might actually mean it this time.
I drag a hand through my hair, undoing the braid I wove this morning. Strands tumble over my shoulders as I pace the length of the room, trying—and failing—to convince myself I came out on top in whatever the hell that was with Thorin in the Sacred Gardens.
He should have been furious. He should have shouted, threatened me, exploded.
He should have done something. Instead, he'd smiled as though I'd said something that interested him more than it offended him. The memory is irritating enough that I consider finding him again just to insult him properly this time. I don’t have time to do that because—
A knock sounds at my door.
I stop pacing. For a moment, I simply stare. No one knocks when they’re coming to this room. They usually barge in wherever they want. Another quiet rap echoes through the room.
Before I can ask who it is, familiar shadows slide beneath the crack at the bottom of the door. They don't creep farther inside as they usually would. They linger for only a heartbeat before retreating, as if waiting.
As if asking permission to enter.
I frown. “Go away,” I call out. I hope he listens. “You've irritated me enough for one day.”
Silence answers before he speaks my name, and it’s enough to undo me. “Lyra.”
Just my name. No command. I don't know why that unsettles me more than if he'd demanded entry. It tugs at my heart more than I want to admit.
With an exaggerated sigh, I yank the door open. “What do you want?”
“I am unraveling, Lyra.” The sincerity in his eyes catches me off guard, and mine soften despite myself.
“Yes,” I say. “I share that same sentiment. I’m falling apart, and I don’t know what to do with it.”
“You are right. It is not fair to you. But there are things I need you to understand. At the same time, there are things I cannot tell you yet.”
“The truth always comes at your convenience, Thorin. Always on your time.”
“Yes, it does. I am a king, Lyra. That is how this works.”
The certainty in his voice irritates me all over again.
“I came because there is one truth I can give you.” His gaze doesn't leave mine. “And I should have told you sooner.”
Something inside me tightens, and I wonder what it is he’ll tell me. I hope it isn’t something that will completely destroy me. I can’t take another blow today. First I realize why he keeps me here, now there’s another truth to uncover. There’s always something, and goddess divine, I’m exhausted.
I hear heavy boots approaching, and know who that stride belongs to before I see his stern face and his large, muscular build. Onyx is coming for me. What a fantastic situation.
Onyx rushes through the door, his gaze darting from Thorin to me. “Thorin, don’t.”
The words come fast, edged with something I've never heard from him before. Fear. His composure has finally cracked.
“Now is not the time.”
I whip my head toward him so fast my neck protests.
“That's not your decision to make.” My voice comes out sharper than I intend. “Leave, Onyx. Leave my chambers. Now!”
“Lyra—”
“Onyx, please.” Thorin runs a frustrated hand through his hair, and his voice sounds… tired. He looks like a king carrying the burden of many, and that burden is finally catching up to him.
Part of me wants to be sympathetic. But I can’t trust him. And if he’s not willing to give me the truth… then I have nothing to say to him.
“I never intended for you to be a weapon, Lyra. I only wanted you to know how to protect yourself. To control your power and strengthen your body and mind. There are…” He sighs deeply, running a hand down his face as if searching for the right words.
“There are people out there who would see you harmed. I know what you are, Lyra. I’ve always known, and when Onyx brought you here and you brought life back to a garden that has been dead for centuries, I knew the prophecy was right.”
I tilt my head, scrunching my nose. “You tell me I need control, but you won’t tell me what happens if I don’t have it.
You tell me villages are disappearing, but you won’t tell me what is taking them.
You tell me I am not a weapon, then teach me how to strike.
Now you tell me I am the cure to your family’s curse? How do you know this?”
Thorin’s expression hardens with each word, but I can’t stop now. I don’t want to stop.
“You want me to trust you with my power, but you won’t trust me with the truth.”
His shadows coil at his feet, and I feel how badly they want to come to me. I feel it. They’re drawn to me like I’m drawn to him.
“You think trust is built with answers.”
“I think trust dies without them, Thorin.”
“You are not ready for every answer.”
I laugh, but it scrapes on the way out. “Then give me one. One real answer, Thorin.”
Silence.
My hands curl into fists. “One fucking answer, Thorin! Not a prophecy fragment. Not a warning. Not another sentence cut in half because you’ve decided I can’t survive the rest of it.”
My voice shakes. “Tell me... or I’ll leave.”
Tears blur my vision, and I look away. I can’t watch Thorin’s face crumple while I’m falling apart.
“Thorin...” My voice breaks around his name. “I will never come back to you.”
I swallow hard. “And I will make myself stop wanting to belong to you.”
I look him straight in the eyes. “One answer.”
His brow furrows.
“I know what I am to you.”
When Thorin opened that mental door, something inside me unlocked. Not memories of my parents. Flashes with them. My mother’s voice. My father’s laughter. The language I’d buried with them.
I don't know everything. But I know enough to understand just how much I mean to the King of Solaris.
“Long before my parents died, they taught me the Old Language.” I swallow hard. “I know what muya mivanti means.”
Thorin doesn’t move. He’s completely still, and the color slowly leaves his face.
“I know I’m your mate, Thorin.” My voice breaks. “And I know you’re... muya quenati.”
I shake my head, tears spilling freely now. “My king.”
Something shifts in his expression.
“I’ve been to the archives a few times. I found out about mate bonds... why my wrist burns. I know.”
His gaze never leaves mine. Whatever wall he’s spent years holding together... breaks.
“Ask me,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “Ask me anything.”
“Why me, Thorin?”
Thorin goes perfectly still. Onyx looks at the floor, his jaw clenched and brow furrowed.
Every reaction tells me the question matters, and that only makes the ache inside my chest worse.
“Why me?” I repeat, because the first time feels like it was swallowed by my grief. “Not the silver hair. Not the prophecy. Not the magic. Me. Why did Onyx come for me? How did you know to look? Why do you stare at me like I am something you lost before you ever found me?”
His eyes darken and an unreadable expression crosses his face. For one impossible moment, I think he will answer truthfully.
Instead he says, “Because your power answered the curse.”
I stare at him, angrily wiping tears from my face. “That’s not enough!”
“It is the truth.”
“It’s a fraction of the truth, and you know it.”
“Yes.” His honesty takes me by surprise.
My laugh breaks into something bordering on mania. “Gods, I hate you, Thorin.”
“No,” he says quietly. “You hate what you do not know, muya mivanti.”
“I hate being kept and caged. Would you like it? If our roles were reversed, would you like being in my position?” I jab a finger into my chest, punctuating every word.
His face changes, and I see it. A crack in his well-constructed mask.
“You are not caged, Lyra...”
I take one step toward him. “Then let me leave. Set me free!”
“You know I cannot.”
I let out a scream of frustration so loud that I nearly hurt my own ears. “No. NO! You can, but you won’t. There’s a difference, Thorin.”
“Not in this, there is not.”
“That’s convenient for you alone. Why cage me, keep me in the dark, feed me with fantasies only to leave me feeling like this?”
“It is necessary.”
“For whom?” I shout, throwing my arms wide.
“For everyone, Lyra. Not just you—everyone.”
The word cracks through me. Everyone.
His kingdom.
His people.
His curse.
His responsibility.
His cost.
And where am I in all of that? Where does his mate fit into any of this?
“Do you hear yourself?” I ask Thorin. “Everything is for everyone. Every secret, every command, every choice you take away from me. Do you ever ask what I want? Do you even care?”
The answer matters more than anything has ever mattered. I hate that it does.
Thorin’s jaw tightens, and for once, I think I already know the answer. “Of course I care, Lyra.”
Five words. He says them without hesitation, and I know they're true. I can feel their truth. They should soothe something inside me. They should make this easier. Instead, they fill me with rage.
“Then why won’t it change anything?”
His face hardens and his cool temperament cracks. “Because what we want cannot be the only thing that matters! I learned that long ago, and I suffer because of it!”
The words strike too close to Onyx’s warning.
He believes he can bear any cost if the kingdom survives.
I look at him then, really look, and I see it.
The terrible shape of his belief. The way he stands in the middle of a dying garden as if he could hold back the rot through will alone.
The exhaustion beneath his eyes. The weight in his shoulders.
The kingdom that has become so much a part of him I wonder whether he remembers who he was before the crown, before an entire continent learned to place its fear in his hands and call it strength.