6. A Slip of the Tongue
“Are you still angry with me?” I asked after Aster and Lazaros had finally left, leaving us alone in the quiet that followed.
The candlelight caught the tension in Atlas’s features, the tightness in his jaw, the fists clenched at his sides.
He looked exhausted. Not physically, because I doubted there was much in this world capable of exhausting Atlas physically, but emotionally, well, that looked to be another story.
Like someone who had been holding himself together for far too long and was finally running out of ways to keep it up.
“Angry?” he repeated. The word sounded almost disbelieving. “No. I’m fucking furious.”
I opened my mouth, prepared for the argument that was clearly coming, but his next words hit me so unexpectedly that they stole the breath from my lungs.
“Alexandra,” he said quietly, shaking his head. “I’m unsure how it is possible for me to be so fucking proud of you, yet at the same time, so disappointed in you.”
I stared at him, my mouth falling open in disbelief.
Disappointed?
Of all the things I had expected Atlas to say, that hadn’t even crossed my mind.
Perhaps disappointed meant something entirely different in The?kós.
Perhaps I had misunderstood him. Because there was absolutely no way I had travelled across realms, survived monsters, labyrinths, wars, and god-like creatures, only to be told that he was disappointed in me.
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“You put yourself in harm’s way,” he said, and though the anger was still there, I could hear something else beneath it now. Something raw. “Again… and Aster…” He paused to shake his head, “Aster allowed it to happen.”
The mention of Aster snapped whatever patience I still possessed.
I stood from my chair before I even realized I was moving, storming my way over to him before I jabbed a finger towards his chest.
“You need to stop blaming Aster.” The words came out sharper than I intended, fueled by what felt like weeks of watching Aster risk his life for me, while Atlas wasn’t there to see any of it.
“I have my own free will, you know. I make my own decisions. Aster didn’t want to come. He wanted me to stay behind and follow your stupid orders. He only followed me because there was no stopping me.”
Atlas’s expression hardened further. Anymore, and he would surely turn to stone.
“Then he should have stopped you.” The words came out sharp and uncompromising, and I actually laughed. Not because anything about the situation was funny, but because I genuinely couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“And how exactly was he supposed to do that?”
“He should have locked you up if that’s what it took.” His voice cracked through the room like a whip, and the words landed like a slap.
For a second, I thought I had misheard him. Then the shock gave way to anger so quickly it almost made me dizzy.
“Are you fucking serious?”
“Deadly!” he snapped, slashing a hand through the air as though the answer should have been obvious.
“Locked me up?” I repeated. “Are you actually hearing yourself right now?”
Atlas’s jaw tightened hard enough to make the muscle jump beneath his skin, but he didn’t take the words back.
If anything, the stubborn look settling into his eyes suggested he stood by every single one of them.
There was frustration, fear, and a lingering fury that hadn’t fully burned itself out since discovering the risks I had taken.
And well, he didn’t even know half of it yet, which wasn’t exactly getting me all fired up to tell him the rest, that was for damn sure!
I closed my eyes as the pain of his words started to bring back memories I didn’t want to face, like the memory of the man who had hunted me.
Who had consumed my dreams. Who took my friend captive in exchange for me.
Who had captured me on horseback and had made decisions for me.
The man who believed he knew what was best for me, regardless of what I wanted.
“Trying to make me a captive again.” A statement, not a question, my voice rising despite my efforts to control it. “That’s your solution? Lock me away because I won’t do what I’m told like some naughty child?”
“That’s not what I said.” Atlas’s voice was low, but the dangerous edge beneath it sent a shiver down my spine.
His eyes flashed as he stared back at me.
Frustration and fear warring behind them in a way that made it painfully obvious this argument had very little to do with control and everything to do with how close he had come to losing me.
His jaw remained clenched, his shoulders rigid beneath the dark fabric of his jacket.
He dragged a hand through his hair, the movement sharp enough to betray just how thin his patience was becoming.
Unfortunately for him, mine was rapidly disappearing too.
“But that’s exactly what you said.”
The frustration that had been building inside me since returning to The?kós finally broke free.
“Well, congratulations,” I snapped, taking a few steps away from him. “Looks like you’re still the same controlling, asshole general who came through the Rift to begin with!” The flinch that crossed his face lasted barely a second, but it was enough to twist something painfully inside me.
I regretted the words immediately.
The truth was, I hadn’t meant them. Not really. Somewhere along the way, I had learned how wrong I had been about Atlas. The man standing in front of me now wasn’t the same man who had entered the Rift all those years ago.
Unfortunately, my pride wasn’t about to let me admit that.
“If that’s what it takes to keep you safe, then so be it.”
“You sound like Riley,” I shot back, and the moment the words left my mouth, they were yet again words I wanted to take back.
The basement rushed into my mind like a living nightmare. Riley standing over me, justifying every terrible thing he was doing. Insisting he was protecting me while taking away every choice I had left.
Atlas went completely still.
His eyes burned with a fury that made my stomach drop.
“Don’t you ever compare me to him.” His voice was barely audible, making them sound almost threatening. “Especially after what he did to you!”
“But you’re being ridiculous,” I argued, refusing to back down even as every instinct told me I had crossed a line.
“I literally saved your brother’s life. I stopped you from making a mistake you would have regretted forever.
I stopped a fucking war for you!” I screamed the words at him, and the force of it made him jerk back slightly.
Seeing that reaction was enough to make me suck in a sharp breath, forcing myself to hold on to the fragile thread of control before I asked,
“Why are you being like this?”
Atlas closed the distance between us in a single stride.
“Why?” he gritted out. “Are you seriously asking me that?”
The disbelief in his voice hit almost as hard as the anger.
Instinctively, I started backing away, needing space between us before this argument spiraled any further out of control.
Unfortunately, Atlas appeared to have very different ideas.
Every step I took backwards was matched by one of his own, his gaze never leaving mine as he continued advancing.
The room seemed to shrink around us.
I took another step.
So did he.
And another.
Until my back eventually collided with the wall behind me, leaving me nowhere else to go, while Atlas stopped directly in front of me, close enough that I could see the storm raging behind his eyes. Feel it like static between us.
Apparently, space was one thing he had absolutely no intention of giving me.
“I’m furious because I could have lost you.
Could have lost the most important person in my life.
” The words came out through gritted teeth as he slammed a hand against the wall beside my head, making me flinch, caging me in without ever truly trapping me.
Frustration radiated from every line of his body, his chest rising and falling with each heavy breath as his dark eyes remained locked on mine.
“This war, it was mine to fight. This kingdom, it was mine to save, and your life is mine to protect, and I have fucking failed at all three.” He laughed bitterly and shook his head, the sound carrying no humor whatsoever.
“But you… you…” He paused, dragging his free hand through his hair before letting it fall uselessly to his side.
“You, my little warrior, my little bird… my anchor… You did it all without needing me.” The vulnerability in his expression was almost harder to bear than the anger.
“You put yourself at risk for me, and I…” His voice caught briefly before he forced the words out. “I nearly lost you.”
His gaze dropped momentarily to my throat, to the place where Lazaros’s blade had cut my skin, and I watched his jaw tighten all over again.
“I’m furious with you for nearly taking that away from me, but I am more furious with myself for letting it happen and benefiting from your bravery and your endless courage in ways I could never properly express.”
The hand not braced against the wall found my waist, his fingers tightening there as though reassuring himself I was really standing in front of him.
The movement drew him closer until there was barely any space left between us, and suddenly I could feel the warmth of him, the tension still coiled through every muscle in his body.
“But more than anything, I want to lock you away because… I am fucking terrified.” His voice dropped lower then, rougher, stripped bare of everything except the truth.
Before I could respond, his hand tightened at my waist, and he yanked me against him, pressing me firmly against his chest as though the thought of letting me go had become physically impossible.
“Because I love you.”
The words hit me harder than any shout ever could.