Chapter 18 #2
Such a simple thing, but it added weight to my already tipping scale. His hand on her back, his fingers in her hair, his lips on her knuckles, hers on his cheek. And she still wore his white cincture, as though she were Canseren. As though he’d already made her his queen.
It was not a surprise. I’d had long enough to understand it, even if it would take the rest of my life to come to terms with it. Yet understanding could not stop my heart from tearing at the sight.
He felt it. Stiffening, Renn searched the bailey, looking for me—
I slipped inside the keep, sucking in deep breaths, willing the sensations away without raising the wall again. I’d have to get used to it sooner or later, and who was I to cheat grief? I certainly was no stranger to it.
I’ve survived worse. An old mantra I used to tell myself often. It felt oddly hollow, now. Or, perhaps, simply false.
I didn’t know where to put myself. I no longer had my own space, and so many arrivals at the castle crowded the walls, bailey, and keep.
So I wended my way to Eden’s room, relieved to find it empty.
I shut the door, poured the last of the water pitcher into the basin, and washed my face one more time, meaning to focus on the coldness of the water to shock myself to rights, but at the end of a hot summer day, the water had gone lukewarm.
If I made my goodbyes tonight, I could leave just before dawn, as soon as Rolys gave me enough light. I never slept well . . . it wouldn’t be hard to hit that blue hour.
Gods, I was crumbling again. A brick wall built with too much sand in its mortar. I’d taken three steps forward during his time away, and now I fell four steps back.
Just for a moment, I told myself as I dowsed, ready to build up the wall. Just until I get my wits about me—
The banging open of the door startled me from my lumis. I expected a flustered Eden; what I got was a very intent king.
The way my heart zinged in his presence left me lightheaded.
“Why are you not in the west tower?” he asked. Our link sparked like kindling.
My mind pulled in too many directions. “Welcome back,” I managed.
He shut the door and crossed to me, seeming larger. Light flared in his blue eyes. “I went to find you. You weren’t there. None of your things were there.” He looked around the space. “Why are you staying with my sister?”
I cleared my throat. “She helps me sleep.” Truth. I fought to ground myself. “You can’t just barge into a woman’s room.”
He snorted. “It’s my castle and my country. I can do what I want.”
“I see the war hasn’t dampened your arrogance,” I muttered.
He didn’t seem to hear me and pointed back toward the door. Westward. “Did she do something?”
I knew he meant Azra, but my own embers began to smoke. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
His pale brows knit together. “And you’ll have to be less obtuse.”
I looked away. Steeled myself. “I did need to talk to you. I . . . I’m glad you’re back.
So glad.” I cursed inwardly as my eyes began to water.
I had tried to prepare myself so I might be straightforward and stoic.
“We’ve many crafters here, now, and Seln, one of the healers, is very adept. Eden has things underway.”
“Stop,” he demanded.
“And with the commanders returned, I think most of the crafters can integrate with the other companies.” I didn’t quite meet his gaze, though I felt it on my face like two fire pokers. “I-I think it’s time that I—”
“Stop, Nym!” Fire blazed through our link and into his voice.
I finally looked at him, meeting fire with fire. “I am not one of your soldiers. You insist I do not address you as my king, and yet you seek to strip away my autonomy—”
He moved so quickly. A gods-touched speed, surely.
Renn seized me, one arm looping behind my back as he bent my body to his, claiming my mouth with his own.
I startled for only a beat before my traitorous, awful half-heart surged, desperate for him, all of him.
I grasped his face like I was to dowse on him, kissing him like my lips were a sword, like this were a battle of our own, and I refused to lose.
Anger and want and sorrow coiled between us, lashing as whips, burning and razing.
He pushed and nipped and begged. I opened my mouth to him, letting his heat fill me, melt me.
I grabbed fistfuls of his hair, guiding him all the closer, tasting rain and spearmint and something spicy and devouring the lot of it.
I poured myself into him: all the waiting, all the hoping, all my brokenness and fear.
He took every bit of it, drinking and giving in uneven cycles, our heartbeats thundering offbeat one another, too loud to hear anything else.
Outside of us, nothing else mattered. Nothing else existed.
His palm came to the back of my head just before we hit the stone wall, cushioning the blow.
I hadn’t even realized we’d moved. There was nothing but him.
Everywhere, him. Desire kindled in my belly, feeding into our bond, only to echo back white-hot from him.
Back and forth, back and forth, until my body felt too tight and too warm.
Like all of me had become pure sensation, every touch echoing into eternity.
Yet it was a heat I would happily embrace.
I would willingly burn alive on the pyre of Renn Noblewight.
His other hand caressed my stomach. Came around to the dip of my waist, descended to my hip.
I pulled back from him only long enough for a breath before reclaiming his mouth and running my tongue along the inside of his lip.
The white fire flashed bright as lightning.
An unearthly sound escaped me, and he devoured it, pressing me harder into the wall.
I nearly ripped his hair from his scalp as I demanded more, more, more.
His fingertips dug into my hip, his arousal against my stomach.
In the depths of the hunger and the hazy lust of it all, however, something cool flickered. Not from the woes of our present, but from a tattered memory five years old, of Ford’s hands holding me down, of his pressure atop me, of Terrence crying my name from the doorway—
Renn sensed it. Even in the throes of want, he sensed it.
His mouth slowed against mine, his touch gentling.
He pulled away slowly; I followed the motions, eager for one last taste of him.
My fervor had pinkened his lips, and I could only imagine what mine must look like.
He pressed a lingering kiss to my jaw, beneath my ear, my neck.
I shuddered with each touch, forcing myself to reel in my appetite for him until I again found myself in a four-walled room.
Present, as though I’d just slipped from a lumis.
We stood there, breathing heavily, trapped in the gravity of one another. Just a moment longer, before reality returned—
“I know how to do it,” he murmured, smoothing an errant curl from my face. “I know how to get them without marriage.”
The proclamation was a stone hitting still water. “Wh-What?”
He cradled my face. Caressed my cheek with his thumb.
Took a step back, yet left not even a full pace between us.
“It . . . won’t be easy. Any documentation that might exist would be in Rove, which is out of our hands, assuming it hasn’t been destroyed.
And with my mother dead, I can’t ask her. I have no testimony or further proof.”
I shook my head. “Renn, what are you talking about?”
“Sesta,” he clarified, caressing my cheek again. “If I can prove I’m Nicosia’s son, then I’m the heir to his kingdom. Sesta’s kingdom for Antsan’s army.”
My pulse began to pick up again. Though I ached to stay near him, I pulled myself away, needing space to think.
“The Sestan throne?” I asked. “Would you lose claim to Cansere, if you proved Sestan parentage?”
“If I had a younger brother, or if Eden claimed her marriage and fought me for it, perhaps. Beyond her, there are no other heirs. But Grejor was my father. Winvrin was legally queen of Cansere, and she is my mother by blood.” He took a deep breath.
Let it out. “I already have spies in that country. Many placed to search for you. I’m sending them into Rodsfell. To retrieve Wald Whitestone.”
Strength fled my legs. I dropped to the edge of the bed I shared with Eden. “Whitestone knew your mother, before.” The very idea sat across my shoulders like a yoke, and each spoken word was another weight added. “You think Whitestone will have proof?”
“He’ll know where I can find it. Perhaps know where my mother lived before I was conceived.” He lowered himself to the corner of the bed, leaving a few feet between us. “She figured out the prophecy before any of us. If there’s anything, it will be there.”
“If not?”
He didn’t answer, but the link scalded.
Hope, raw and painful, rose in my breast. I tried to tamp it down. “Even so . . . even if you succeed, to forfeit an entire kingdom—”
“I never wanted Sesta,” Renn said.
“You never wanted to be king, either, but none of this is about what we want.” I rubbed my eyes, balancing the information. “If you don’t find proof . . . would you give Antsan Sesta anyway?”
He frowned. “This war has been about defending what is rightfully ours. To turn it into one of conquering, to push onto Sestan soil until it falls . . . it would take too many years and too many lives, even if Nicosia were out of the picture. I don’t think Antsan would agree to that.
I couldn’t ask my people to sacrifice so much. ”
I nodded slowly. “And Whitestone?”
“Nicosia was at Serravia. Far from Rodsfell. I intend to get Whitestone to talk and then get him across the strait.”
I hated Physician Whitestone. I hated him in Rove and I hated him in Rodsfell. The thought of seeing him again turned my stomach. But if he’d been sincere in his regrets . . . if he could help Renn, help us . . .
I swallowed. “It seems so far-fetched.” It hurt to hope.