Chapter 18 #3
He pulled off his leather bracers. Set them aside. Flexed his hands. “It will work. It has to work.”
That familiar lump began to re-form in my throat. “And if it doesn’t?”
He stayed carefully masked, but he bristled through the link. Bristled, and bled.
I sifted through what we’d exchanged. “What if I believe you?” I asked, the words cracking as they dribbled over my lips.
“What if I let myself believe you, let myself hope all will be well, that I can have all of you, and then I can’t?
” I blinked away tears. “I’m . . . I’m barely holding on as it is, Renn.
I can’t survive that. Can’t . . . I can’t come back from that. ”
He opened his mouth to argue, then tensed to hold back a cough, but the scars on his lumis won out, and he turned away, coughing hard. Took a moment to compose himself as frustration trickled from his heart to mine. “It has to work, Nym.”
I shook my head, confusion rising like dark smoke. “I don’t understand. You and Azra, I’ve seen you two together. You’re paving the way for her—”
He rolled his eyes. Gods help me, but it made him look like the aloof, arrogant prince I’d met when I first came to Rove, and the cavalier manner of it bothered me. “I told you, it’s strategy. To appease the emissary. To garner information.”
My brow drew low. “You told me no such thing.”
Chagrin through the bond. Hesitation. “Didn’t I?”
I combed back through our time together since arriving at the castle. Hinged on one moment in particular: Please don’t hate me for what I’ll have to do to make this work.
I took a deep breath to still my trembling.
He ran a hand down his face. “It’s . . . helped,” he offered by way of a bandage. “Antsan has a strong navy, but they’re not the type to invoke war. They have no quarrel with Sesta. What they do have is raze mites.”
I tilted my head. “Raze mites?” An infestation?
He nodded. “They’ve created a famine, a food shortage in Antsan, especially with their wheat. They have to burn whole fields to be rid of them, but the pests spread quickly. Cansere has fertile farming land. A lot of it.”
I frowned. “But to offer Sesta—”
“Sesta has good farming. Not as good, not with their tundra, but enough. And Cansere yields enough crop to make up for any deficit. But that can be negotiated through trade, rather than marriage.”
I mulled this over. “You’ve gleaned this from their princess?”
He nodded. “And more. And I intend to use every last syllable to my advantage.” His countenance softened. “It will be enough. It has to. Nym, I hope—”
“Hope isn’t enough.” The confusion choked me, and the possibilities burned without mercy. “This is reality. You’re not only a king, you’re a prophecy.” My chest constricted. “And even if it was . . . even if all your efforts paid off . . . how do you know I’ll always be enough for you?”
His expression shattered like glass beneath a hammer. “Nym, no.”
“You haven’t had opportunity to . . . get out there.” My nose stung and my palms sweat. The bed became a bottomless pool I struggled to tread water in. I thought of him and Azra, backlit by the sunlight, the vision of perfection. “There are . . . phenomenal women out there. Women like Azra—”
“Was I enough for you?” he countered. “Before?” He moved closer to me, so that our knees touched. Traced the curve of my shoulder. “If you’d never succeeded in healing me, if I was a burden the rest of our days, would you still love me?”
It was more of a rhetorical question than anything else; Renn knew the answer. We both did. I had hunted him down and kissed him before I ever unraveled the enigma of his shattered lumis.
“Asking me isn’t the same, and you know it,” I whispered.
“How is it not—”
“Because you have power,” I interrupted. “You have responsibilities and a duty to your people, and I do not. To pretend otherwise is obtuse.”
“A characteristic I’m fine adding to my repertoire.”
“Renn—”
Hand to the back of my neck, he kissed me roughly, challenging me, tracing the seam of my lips with his tongue.
As though staking his claim could resolve the issues between us, and admittedly, for the present, it did.
I wanted him, however wrong it was. I lacked the courage to stand strong.
After so long apart, again, I couldn’t find my resolve.
I softened against him like honey in the sun, as malleable and compliant as an adolescent who’d yet to suffer the weight of the world.
When he pulled back, it was only with enough space to look into my eyes. Our noses brushed; our breaths mingled.
“I will claim both kingdoms,” he murmured. “Antsan will take the boon. I will remake Cansere the way you remade me, and our people will love you, because who on this gods-given planet wouldn’t love you?”
Breaking me. He was breaking me, and I couldn’t tell if it was for the better or for the worse.
“You say I’m a prophecy,” he continued, “but you are part of that prophecy. The scripture is only true because of you.”
I rolled my lips together. “It was true without me. If Nicosia hadn’t broken you—”
“Do you really think the gods did not take that into account?” he asked. A nostalgic sadness passed from him to me. “I loved my brother, but can you imagine if he had been given this kind of power?”
A dry, sore chuckle tore up my throat and died on my tongue.
Pulling his hand from my neck, he combed fingers through my hair, working out a snag as he did.
“I’d hoped the prophecy would be enough, but Antsans are humanists.
They don’t believe in our gods, yet even they are impressed with what they’ve made me.
” He studied his palms. “But they’re greedy bastards, just like every other sovereignty.
If I can end that bastard Nicosia and prove my right to his throne, we’ll have their armies.
We’ll have each other. All of it . . . it will all be worth it, Nym. ”
He dropped his hands and sighed. “I had a lot of time to think on the road. About the war, about the treaty, and about us. And in truth, Nym, the only thing I’ve ever been certain about is you.”
Now I reached for him, tracing his chin, jaw, and nose with a knuckle.
“Fifteen days ago, something terrible happened to you.” He knew what I meant, because his mask went up immediately, and a tangle of emotions traversed our connection—sadness, embarrassment, shame.
“Will you tell me what hurt you so badly?”
Moisture shimmered in his eyes. He looked away. “I didn’t want you to feel that,” he whispered.
I touched his thigh, trying to be reassuring.
“I . . . understand the sentiment. If you don’t want to talk about it, I won’t hold it against you.
” Truth, all of it, however curious I was.
I had not detailed to Renn exactly how Nicosia had hurt me, again and again, while I hung staked to that tree.
I didn’t need to; he would have felt every blow.
If I could have spared Renn from that hardship, I would have.
It was only right that I give him the opportunity to do the same.
I didn’t think he would answer. He stared at the floor, silent, for minutes. I massaged the back of his neck. Traced shapes on his back. Leaned against his shoulder. I was about to suggest he retire for some rest when he spoke.
“It comes down to me, every time,” he said, and I felt the physical ache of it as though it were my own.
“Every skirmish, every battle, it ends with me. I kill so many of them, Nym.” He hunched over, setting his elbows on his knees.
“Men just doing as their king commands, just like mine. And I slaughter them like rats in a cellar. Soon I’ll have killed more people than I’ve lived days.
Adrinn . . . he could have done it. He had the spine for it. I . . . I don’t.”
“Renn.” I slid from the bed so I could kneel in front of him.
“Renn, do not ever think that mourning the dead is a weakness, even if they are your enemy. Never think that.” I gripped his knees, hard enough to make him look at me.
“This is war. It is not your war, but if you don’t answer it, more people than those will suffer.
What you have, what you are, is a gift from the gods, and you are a gift to us.
That pain, that sorrow, it means you’re human.
It means you are good, Renn. And I will bear it with you time and time again.
Even if this link between us faded, even if you must swear yourself to Azra to spare your people, I would bear it with you.
” My eyes watered. “You will be the best king this country has ever known. I think . . . I think you already are.”
He slid off the bed so that he kneeled, too. A million emotions braided between us. I kissed his lips and a single errant tear.
“Don’t lock me out, Nym,” he whispered, dropping his forehead to my shoulder. “Let me feel you. Let me know that you believe in me.”
I shuddered, throat sore. “My hope of you will destroy me.”
His lips grazed my neck. “I would battle the gods themselves for you. Give me a little longer. I’ll make this work. Just give me a little longer.”
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to protect that hope he’d built for us. Between us was a complex game of chance, both our hearts on the table. All in.
There was no way to know if Renn would succeed. But through our link, I knew he meant every word.
So I believed him. One day in the near future, I might regret doing so. I might rail against my past self, hate her, and curse her for doing so. But hope was all I had left, however much it hurt.
So I believed him.
And yet, until the thing was done, I could not claim him.
Renn and I parted ways, his physical absence like the loss of a limb.
The magic linking us was both a boon and a curse, but that night it was a comfort, for I knew Renn went to bed thinking of me, and his warmth lulled me into a dreamless rest not even memory of Nicosia managed to puncture.