Chapter Twenty-Three
MY JAW ACHES from how tightly my teeth are clenched as I stalk after Zhoric down the cavernous halls of the castle.
The sentinels have all risen by the time I walk by them, and Zhoric doesn’t need to look over his shoulder to be sure I’m with him.
He waits by his open door until I’m through, then closes it behind me.
Striding past him, I walk across the wide room until I’m outside on the balcony.
I know my body isn’t here, but it feels like it.
I can’t catch my breath, my heart thrums in my chest, reverberating like a drumbeat across the ground.
My emotions rest on the surface, riding a rising wave that will crash in on itself and cause destruction to anything in its wake.
Zhoric sets his elbows onto the railing beside me.
I can’t feel the coolness of the stone under my arms, but I feel like I can sense the heat of his body radiating off of him.
I track the clouds drifting across the sky, luminous as they cross the moons.
We stay like that for a time in silence, taking in the night.
“What are you thinking?” he asks, gently breaking the quiet with the soft timbre of his voice.
I shake my head as slowly and softly as his question before turning to him. “What are you doing? Mocking me? Confusing me?”
“I’m trying to get you to stay away, Kaisa.” The air stills around me as he locks me in his gaze—one filled with desperation. “I want you to keep coming.”
My fingers tighten on the railing so hard my knuckles turn white.
“What does that mean?” I’ve never much enjoyed puzzles or riddles in the way Ninon does, but something about the mystery of him feels like it’s beginning to consume my every thought.
I remember the bond and I grow frustrated—these can’t be my own feelings, and yet, from everything I know of the connection, it’s only supposed to heighten that which I already feel. It’s impossible.
“The other night you stayed with me while I…” He trails off, unwilling or unable to say what it is he does on the balcony every few nights.
“While you what?” I prompt.
“While I was tending,” he says, enunciating the word, “to what I need to do. No one has ever seen me like that before. Not even Thrace. I’ve always been alone.
With you there, though, feeling my pain, seeing what I do on those nights, it made me feel…
” His words leave him again, and I see the struggle to get them out with every swallow he takes to drum up the courage or conviction to say more.
“Feel what?” I know I should brush him off and tell him it was nothing, that I would have done it for anyone.
That must be true. If I can stay at someone’s side in their pain, knowing they’re a monster, it must be true that I would do it for anyone.
But I wouldn’t. Not for Selnor. Not for Alixor.
And a horrible, spiteful part of me thinks I might not even do it for my own mother for all that she’s put me through—all that she neglected.
Zhoric’s jaw works as he looks down and away from me. “Like I wasn’t so alone.”
I don’t know what to say. Zhoric isn’t the man I supposed he was, and I don’t know what to make of it.
I don’t believe the moment with Thrace or Selnor was an act.
I think he was showing me more of himself.
Is it so he can lead me like I’m meant to lead him?
Or, is it because he’s developing feelings for me?
I need to get the upper hand, but I’m unmoored, an uprooted stalk taken by the gale.
I need him to feel comfortable around me, but I’ll have to take care to guard my own heart.
“I’m not much accustomed to loneliness,” I say in an attempt to turn the tide of the conversation away from dangerous waters. “Wherever I go, I’m surrounded by those who care for me. My village. My people.”
“It was once something I was not accustomed to, either,” he admits on a sigh.
He’s opening up. As much as I want to ask about the interaction with Selnor and why he can’t kill him even though he seems to be the source of much trouble, I won’t miss this opportunity to strengthen Zhoric’s feelings for me.
I take in a fortifying breath, the scent of the sun warmed earth long gone this deep in the night. “I heard you had a sister.”
“My twin. In my era of birth, twins were rare, precious things. We were always together. I think after all that I’ve done, Erenmaag took pleasure in showing me what I lost with every birth I helped fabricate since then. Yours included.”
My gaze flicks down to his chest where the god scale lies.
Did he steal that from Erenmaag, the god of fate and agency?
Or was it another, and Erenmaag was only happy to enact some cruelty upon Zhoric for what he’d done.
I remember Ozias mentioning a sister, but I didn’t realize it was his twin.
His loss hits me harder knowing this, imagining losing Kalixta in the same way.
“Did she not do anything to help you with your Alixor?” I ask.
Zhoric leans further down, resting his cheek against his folded hands atop the balcony to look at me.
“She was gone with her bonded much of the time, performing their duty for the gods across the seas.” His gaze flicks towards the stars, to the sky that’s beginning to take on a purplish hue, signifying that morning isn’t too far off and that our time is almost done. “They were marvelous together.”
His reverence for their relationship strikes me deep, the longing and want has my fingers itching to sweep back the lock of hair that’s fallen across his forehead. Our time is short, and it ramps up the need I have to understand, to know.
“Why did you bond with her? Why not anyone else?”
“No one else would have me.”
“Why not?” I straighten and turn to fully face him, giving him the entirety of my attention, pretending the sun has much longer to go before it crests the horizon.
“Solan was cruel, a trait born from her father—he was ruthless. He’d wanted a son, so she did everything she could to show him what she was made of, including pinning me in her sights.
My father and mother approved of the match, knowing we’d make a strong pair that would please the gods.
With the four of them willing to fight off any of my other connections, and my sister gone, blissfully unaware with a happy, powerful bonded match of her own, no one was willing to rise to the challenge. ”
“I would have.” The words fly out of my mouth, twined with quiet determination. Immediately I want to take them back.
Zhoric rises, his jaw clenched tight, and he storms back into his rooms.
I follow him and reach out, but don’t touch him. “Zhoric—”
“No.” He spins to face me, raising a finger. “No. You do not get to come to me now when I am this.” He turns his finger onto himself, pressing deeply where the god scale rests on his abdomen.
The emotion in his words are so powerful I have to devour a ragged breath of air to steady myself. “And what are you, exactly?”
“A despicable creature who’s unleashed unspeakable pain and suffering upon the world all so he could end his own.” His shoulders heave as he stares at me, eyes wild and desperate.
I’m nodding. I need to hear that. It’s something I know and I shouldn’t soon forget.
“Yes,” I say. “I cannot and will not convince you or myself otherwise. That what you’ve done: whatever part you played to make me and the women what we are, is despicable.
” My tongue is pressed tight to the roof of my mouth, desperately trying to keep in my next question, but I have to know.
I need to know if there’s more to him. What does it say about me if my strongest bond, my strongest potential, lies with him. “What I’m asking is what are you now?”
His nostrils flare, eyes still wild. “The thing that’s keeping this broken world from falling into the depths of complete darkness and ruin—and I will not take you there with me.”
My breath leaves me completely. This is no act.
Zhoric truly feels something for me; or, I’m the greatest fool to have ever lived.
I fear it may be both. A man who’s willing to let go of this bond to spare me isn’t the wretched creature he claims to be.
I want to tell him that, but instead, the dawn comes blindingly bright, reflecting in the white stone walls of his room and washing out the image of him, and then I’m gone.
Sharp rocks dig into my knees. I blink my eyes open in the Realm, brushing dampness from my cheek.
I drop my face into my hands and inhale slow and steady.
Too close. I got too close to him and it’s ripping me apart.
Atlanta’s words warned me. Ozias shared how it feels to bond with someone—but nothing could have prepared me for this.
It’s like a knot is tied around my heart, and with every admission Zhoric made, the rope has tightened to the point where I’m not certain I can undo it without severing something vital.
I have to get a hold of myself.
I blow out all the air from my lungs and shake my hands. Steadying myself with a few more lungfuls of air, I stand. I can’t bring myself to face Ninon yet. She’ll see every seed of panic planted on my face.
“Kaisa?” I hear her call. I spin towards the rock wall of the enclosure and count the stacked stones from bottom to top until my breathing slows and the muscles in my face and shoulders relax.
She says my name again, this time louder as she rounds the corner into my enclosure. Turning to her, I smile. “Hey, you’re awake.”
Ninon’s eyes move across my face at a rapid pace. Before she can ask, I stride toward her. “I can’t believe how sore I am still after going up against Issa,” I say, rolling my shoulder. “How does my face look?”
Angling her head, Ninon inspects my injury. “Almost healed.”