Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
My mind was reeling as King Airen led me back to his kingdom. We landed in the once-dead garden, where green shoots and buds were now abundant. But I couldn’t look at the beauty; all I could hear was the echo of my name on Betta’s lips.
Airen cupped my face with both hands, the pads of his thumbs against my cheekbones. I wanted to weep, but his presence steadied me. His eyes held depths of emotion, and when he spoke, his voice was soft, gentle, as though he were trying not to break me.
“I woke when the dance changed,” he began.
“When you made a mistake. I’d lost countless years in slumber.
Dozens. Hundreds. Then a crack of light, and you were above me in the dark, frightened and bleeding.
It was your blood I sensed and recognized.
A purer strain of the queen who bound us.
I knew you had the power to seal our doom or free us. ”
I thought of Rift Mother. I thought of Sacred Mother. Dead. Because they persisted in binding him to a cage. None of this made sense.
“Who killed them?” I whispered, afraid of the answer. “Who started this?”
“I killed Rift Mother,” he said without flinching.
“The night after you found me, after you fled. I was still trapped, but the crack you opened was wide enough for something of mine to pass. It crept up through the stones, marked her, and wrote the words so everyone would know that something had woken.”
I thought of Rift Mother and the horror I’d felt when I knelt by her side.
Devastated. And I was blamed. All along, he knew.
He’d started this not by manipulating me, but by taking away my security.
I felt numb. “She saved me,” I whispered.
“She took the place of my mother when the demons took everything away from me.”
“I know that too,” he said, but his hold on me did not relent, and there was a darkness in his gaze.
“She was also one of two people alive who could have trapped me in the dark again. And she would have. I’m not going to tell you I am sorry because I would do it again, and you would know I was lying. ”
I understood his desperation. Hadn’t I tasted it?
The reckless need for freedom, the desire to do whatever it took.
His anger he’d taken out on those who had an inkling of the truth, who kept me dancing even though they knew what it was doing to me.
Did Betta know? Had she, too, played a part in this?
My lower lip trembled, his gaze lingered there, and he brushed his thumb against the corner of my mouth.
I blinked hard, holding onto his wrist. “The others? What about them? The Vestal in the kitchens? The Warden at my door?”
“Not mine.” He gave a slight shake of his head, displacing a lock of black hair that fell across his forehead. Ordinarily it would have made my knees go weak, but I felt as though I were still unwrapping the truth.
“And Sacred Mother?” I pressed.
He looked at me, oh so gently.
Fear beaded through me. “Airen? Sacred Mother?”
“No,” he whispered.
He was looking at me in an odd way. The way Betta had looked at me, with a mix of suspicion and pity. Except there was an undercurrent of kindness, as though he was carefully, cautiously showing me the truth. Letting me understand it for myself.
“What do you mean no? You said she was the only one left who could rebuild what you meant to break. You promised to take back every hour she took from me. You said—”
“I said I would,” he interrupted, searching my face. “I never got the chance.”
“Then who?”
He said nothing, only held me. One hand cupping my cheek, his other arm reaching around to support me.
“Who?” I asked again.
“Remember, Gazelle. It’s okay to remember.”
I closed my eyes, sagging against him.
There I was again, standing at the foot of the stairs.
The white garments in the dark. I’d crossed the open floor of the amphitheater, but I didn’t remember it.
I’d come to, breathing hard, my hand aching, my fingers stiff, palm sore.
There was a darkness under my nails, and the hem of my dress was wet and heavy.
Heavy because I’d walked a long way in the catacombs, my hands dirty from the stone, my palm hurt because…
“No,” I cried.
“Gazelle.” He held me tight.
I opened my eyes, tears blurring my vision just for a moment. “No. Verena killed her. I was in chains, and she sat at the desk across from me and told me—”
I stopped because of his expression. The way he looked at me, the way he held me, as though he knew this might break me.
“Say her name again,” he encouraged.
“Verena.”
“And who is she?”
“She is another dancer.” I paused, trying to remember. “My oldest friend. She came to the Sacred Palace shortly after I did. We danced together, but I was chosen for the Lead Dancer. She was always second to me in skill, but she led the practices; the young ones looked to her. Everyone love—”
My words faltered.
Everyone loved Verena.
I’d said that to myself a thousand times in the palace, sometimes with bitter envy. But I couldn’t recall anyone speaking to her. Not one dancer, one Vestal, or one Warden. Rift Mother never spoke to her, nor did Betta.
I closed my eyes and opened them again. Remembering.
The pools I bathed in alone, my right as Lead Dancer.
The prison cell, and the stack of clothes and blankets, just outside the railings. Never handed to me.
The way Verena only told me what I already knew, my conscience arguing with me.
The chair in Commander Tiberon’s office was empty, pushed back against the wall. Betta’s expression when she walked in and found me talking to myself.
Verena’s absence during practice, and how easy it had been to win over all the dancers. How quick it had been because everyone loved Verena.
I recalled the devil attacking, the empty stones where her body should have been, and Betta, holding both my hands, releasing me from service.
Gazelle Verena Dakari.
My knees went.
Airen caught me and lowered us both to the ground.
He held me while I sobbed, and I couldn’t stop.
I was the little girl under the table again, holding onto the leg, seeking comfort when everything had been ripped away.
I was desperate not to be alone. I needed a friend.
It was lonely becoming a Lead Dancer, so I’d given myself a friend.
She wasn’t always there; some years we’d never spoken.
When I could breathe again, I sat up, kneeling in front of Airen. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket, and I used it to wipe my face. Coming to the truth. I had to say it out loud.
“I killed Sacred Mother.”
“Yes,” Airen confirmed.
“I walked out of your kingdom, and I felt powerful. I had a knife, and she didn’t even know it.
She was there to drink the moonlight, to gloat, and when she saw me, she couldn’t resist. She came to drink my blood, and I gutted her before she could.
I wrote the words in her blood, and I ran to the palace. I told them I’d found a body.”
“Yes,” Airen said quietly, patiently, waiting for more.
“I summoned the devil,” I went on. “I found a book in the prison cells. Hidden under rock. I was desperate because Rift Mother told me it was time to train my replacement, and I needed a way to prove I was the only dancer they ever needed.”
“But then you couldn’t hold the devil, and it did as it pleased.”
“I forgot about it most of the time,” I admitted. “But I remember the shadows on the wall, the voice inside my head, the candles burning low, the incense. Airen, how can you sit here with me, knowing what I’ve done?”
He reached for me, fingers ghosting my wrist. He held my hand.
“Gazelle, your soul was coming apart, piece by piece, every time you danced. That is what the rite does. I told you, I was going to save you because I could see your fractured soul. You gave your darkness to Verena, and she was good to you, she took care of everything. But now she’s gone, you are whole, you will continue to be whole and healed, with me. ”
I felt bare, naked in front of him, all of my vulnerabilities on display. “You knew?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“The first night I met you, you were whispering in the dark, talking to yourself. You showed me both of your faces.”
“And you said nothing?”
“I said nothing.”
“Why not?”
“Because I needed you to dance, and if you had discovered the truth and gone to them, they would have dismissed you. I almost lost you as it was, the four weeks of silence.”
I felt bowed under the weight of his words. But there was one answer I’d longed for my entire life. “Do you know who killed my family? Was it demons?”
“It was Taveil, the one you called Sacred Mother. Your ancestor. Your mother left the Sacred Palace. She danced the lead for no more than a year, then she walked out of the palace, married and had children. Taveil could not allow it. A Lead Dancer had never left; they’d given their souls.
There were other branches of the family at that time, other girls who might have served.
So your mother was punished, and you were left to serve. ”
I closed my eyes, remembering the horror, wondering why it didn’t take me too. “It left me on purpose.” I breathed. “And Rift Mother came; she was there so quickly. I never once wondered how she’d arrived so fast.”
“Gazelle—”
“And I carried that burden for years.” I closed my eyes, letting the pain sink in. I had killed the woman who orphaned me on the steps of the house she built to keep me.
I let out a breath and faced the Hollow King again. “How do you know this? You were trapped here.”
“Because I went and found out,” he said simply.
“I have not been trapped for weeks, Gazelle. While your people were whispering about the strange creatures who fought demons in their streets, I visited the Hall of Records. The scroll you gave me had the details; the Keeper helped me find the rest. As for Betta, I went to her when the council voted for her.” His mouth tightened.
“I needed to know if the new Rift Mother would be a problem. But mostly, I wanted to know because you asked me, and I wanted to give you this truth.”
I sat back and looked at him, truly looked at him.
A king, on his knees with me. I was shattered, broken, but he’d come to save me.
He’d done reckless, terrible things, but nothing as terrible as what I had done.
And in my heart, I should hate him for what he’d done to Rift Mother, the horror he’d unleashed.
But there was something deeper there, that connection I’d felt to him since the moment I’d laid eyes on him.
It wasn’t madness, or perhaps it was a kind of insanity.
But I knew I was right where I belonged. With him.
“How can you want me?” I asked. “After all I’ve done?”
Airen reached for me, drawing my forehead against his.
“Because you’re the other half of my heart.
You’ve felt it, too, haven’t you? The moment we met in the shadows?
Our connection. I knew that if I saved you, I’d save more than myself, or my people; we’d also save the lives of all the future dancers, who never need to sacrifice their souls for a lie. ”
It would take time to reckon with what I knew. Time to forgive myself. Time to come to this new way of life and understanding.
But not tonight.
He kissed me, and I was lost.
There was no reservation in his kiss. Not after everything, not with every terrible thing out in the open between us.
His hands came off my face and into my hair, fisting there, dragging me up until I was flush against him, and there was nothing between us but silk and the hammering of two hearts.
I opened for him, and he took what I gave, deeper, hungrier, his teeth catching my lower lip until I gasped into his mouth.
I kissed him back with pure desperation. I had nothing left to hide. He’d seen all of it, my fractured self, my madness, the blood on my hands, and he was still here. He still wanted me. And that was a gift.
His mouth left mine and found my jaw, the line of my throat, the wild jump of my pulse.
I tipped my head back and let him have me.
Wet heat at the hollow of my collarbone.
My fingers dragging through his hair, then down, working the fine cloth of his shirt open so I could press my palms flat against his heated skin.
He made that low, unkingly sound I’d come to love, and it went through me, silver, then gold.
He took my mouth again, and this time he laid me back in the grass.
I didn’t recall there being grass, but somehow it had grown lush and thick around us, like a carpet to rest our bodies.
His weight settled over me, my knees rising to hold him.
His hand slid beneath the silk at my thigh, stopping there, deliberate.
Breaking the kiss, he watched me tremble and arch, his eyes dark, enjoying the sight of my wanting.
It was only when I moaned that he gave me sweet relief, bringing me to the brink of satisfaction and cresting me over again and again. Until I did not feel broken, the darkness faded, and I felt whole for the first time in a very long time.
When I finally came up for air, panting, mouth swollen, hair wrecked, his heart thudding against my palm, I saw them. The dark red rosebuds all around us had burst into full bloom.