68. Zarek
Zarek
NOT A CONVERSATION YOU SHOULD HAVE WITH ME
“We’ll be there tomorrow?” Petrys asks me, in a low whisper.
We’re walking next to the horses, picking our way down a long, rocky slope as the eastern horizon turns from ebony to the tired, washed-out gray of old rags.
My feet hurt. Hells, everything hurts. I’ve been sleeping about as well as you’d expect to sleep during the day in a stolen bedroll spread on top of rocks, and my patience for my brother’s stupid questions is about as thin as my blankets.
So I bite my tongue. Petrys did save my life, after all. And he and Gerard seem to have come to some sort of truce, or at least they’ve kept their fighting to muttered insults and overly dramatic eye rolls.
Petrys glances back over his shoulder, as if assuring himself that Lilias and Gerard are still there, and then turns back to me.
“It’s not my business,” he begins.
Lovely. That’s always a wonderful way to start a conversation. My jaw clenches, and I try to remind myself to breathe.
“But, you’ve un-fucked things, right?” he asks, under his breath.
“What?”
Petrys looks down at his feet, like he’s embarrassed.
“I mean,” he begins, “you’re probably not going to have much of a chance for a private conversation with her once we meet up with her brother, right?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say, with as much patience as I can muster.
Petrys rolls his eyes. “Look. I can’t tell if you’re avoiding her on purpose or if being an asshole just comes naturally to you,” he says. “But you told me you’d fucked things up with your wife and, as far as I can tell, you’ve only spoken to her once since she saved your sorry ass.”
“That’s not true,” I snap.
And then I realize it is true.
We talked the morning I found her on watch duty. When I apologized for being such a pathetic excuse for a husband, and then I could not stop myself from kissing her like my life depended on it.
And that’s it. We’ve spent the rest of the trip riding hard at night and collapsing from exhaustion when the sun rises. Gerard keeps waking her up for watch duty, which annoys the piss out of me even though I know it shouldn’t.
It just seems like another way I’ve failed. That I can’t even protect my wife from having to wake up and watch for the armies chasing her down. Because of me.
Petrys stares at me like he can read my mind, and it’s very disappointing.
“All I’m saying is this,” he tells me. “If you haven’t talked about it, you should. Now. It’s not going to be easier to un-fuck your marriage once you’re surrounded by your in-laws, right?”
“Godsdamnit,” I mutter. “Why do you care?”
Petrys stares at me until I realize I’m being an asshole again. I run my hand over my face and shake my head.
“Sorry,” I say. “It’s just, Marion doesn’t want this marriage. Being married to the snake of Vsenrog means absolutely fuck all right now, and Prince Elrick knows it. I have nothing to offer a princess.”
Petrys snorts. “This,” he says, “is not a conversation you should be having with me.”
I grumble a string of curses under my breath, because he’s right and I hate it. I rub the back of my neck, where my skin feels tight and prickly, then glance back over my shoulder.
“You keep doing that,” Petrys says.
I raise an eyebrow at him.
“You hear something?” he asks, looking into the darkness behind us like he’s expecting the entire army of Vsenrog to come charging down the pass.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s nothing.”
Nothing I can explain, anyway. Ever since we crossed the pass separating Vsenrog from what used to be the Kingdom of Marion, I’ve felt—something. It’s almost like the prickle of magic, that strange, tight feeling that crawled across my skin and twisted my guts every time Varitan attacked me.
But it’s not quite the same. It doesn’t hurt.
I press my fingers against the silver chain in my pocket, as if reassuring myself that it’s still dull and inert. And of course it is. Whatever I did in Vsenrog used all the magic it had.
We turn a corner in the narrow, rocky path, and the valley opens up before us like a bowl filled with shadows. A long, thin ribbon of light snakes through the darkness, gleaming like the predawn sky.
“Oh,” I gasp.
“What is it?” Petrys asks, suddenly wary.
“Nothing,” I reply, shaking my head. “I just— I know where we are.”
“And?”
I glance back at Lilias. She’s leading both horses, with Gerard walking behind them.
Gerard’s horse started limping two days ago.
She was the first one to notice, of course, and she insisted that we don’t ride any of them since then.
It’s hard enough for the gelding to have a bruised hoof, she said, without feeling like he has to keep up with his friends.
I had the entirely inappropriate reaction of thinking about what a wonderful mother she would make, and then I spent the rest of the long, uncomfortable night leading my horse as we stumbled through the dark and trying to forget I ever imagined the woman who no longer has any reason to be my wife having children.
“So?” Petrys asks again, dragging my attention back to him. “Where are we?”
“That’s a town called Detec.” I point to the bend in the river, and I realize I’m smiling. “I’ve, uh, stayed there before.”
With Lilias. After Anura left to warn Marion about Vsenrog’s armies, leaving just the two of us in that massive bed in the inn.
I woke up with my body pressed against Lilias and my cock so hard it almost hurt, and sometime between sneaking out of bed and frantically jacking off while fantasizing about my unbearably sexy wife, she woke up.
And when I asked her if she wanted me to touch her, she said yes.
I bring my hand to my face to cover my grin. Petrys shakes his head.
“You really need to talk to her,” he grumbles.
I pull in a breath and try to ignore the low, aching pulse of memory in my cock.
“Fine,” I say. “I will.”
We don’t stop until the sky is a brilliant light blue streaked with pink. Gerard wants to keep going; we’re close to the hunting camp, and he argues the risk of being seen by anyone from Vsenrog in these mountains is so low it’s ridiculous.
But Petrys insists we stop, and the two of them spend the morning glaring at each other as we set up our meager camp in the thickest bunch of trees we can find and then share the last of the hard tack and shriveled apples Alia packed for us.
I try to ignore the low pulse of guilt in my gut as I pull the saddles off the horses and spread the bedrolls.
Petrys pushed to stop for the day because of me. To give me time to talk to Lilias. And he’s right. I really should talk to her before we have to face her brother.
Prince Elrick. I remember him sitting behind a desk in the abandoned hunting lodge that held the shattered remains of his kingdom and calmly suggesting my marriage could be annulled.
That arrogant son of a bitch, planning to marry his sister off for political gain while his own wife, the wife he chose, who had absolutely no strategic value for his kingdom, stood right next to him.
Shit. I realize I’m grinding my teeth and try to force myself to stop.
I stare at my sad, thin bedroll, which I’ve already spread and rearranged a dozen times, and then I watch Lilias as she runs a comb over one of the horses.
She turns away as soon as our eyes meet.
When I glance at Petrys, he flicks his hand at me like he’s trying to shove me toward my wife.
Okay. Fine. I come to my feet, grab the empty waterskins, and walk toward Lilias. The horse she’s brushing shakes his head, sending a cloud of dust flying. She smiles at him in a way that makes my heart pinch. I clear my throat, and she turns to me with her beautiful, dark eyes.
“Hi,” I say, like an absolute idiot.
She smiles. Behind her, Petrys rolls his eyes and waves his hand at me again.
“Would you, uh, like to walk with me?” I ask. “While I get water?”
And that has to be the least romantic thing anyone has ever said. But Lilias smiles at me, and despite everything I know I have to tell her, some small part of me feels like the sun has just broken through the clouds.
“I’d love to,” she says, with a cheerful grin I most certainly don’t deserve.
She tucks the comb into a saddlebag, then walks over to me. Together, we pick our way through the forest and toward the sound of rushing water. The woods fill with sunlight as we walk, and gods, it’s going to be an absolutely beautiful day.
If only it could stay like this. If we could build a home here, hidden in the mountains, and forget everything we’d ever learned about kingdoms and wars, kings and magic. If only it could just be the two of us.
I sigh as the little stream appears before us. The mountains of Marion are heartbreakingly beautiful right now, in the heart of summer. But the winters here are long and brutal, and there’s no way we could live here alone. In Dungal, maybe—
“Here?” Lilias asks.
I blink and look where she’s pointing. There’s a deep pool in the stream below a series of moss-covered boulders. It would be a great place to bathe, honestly. And then I’m picturing my wife naked against those rocks—
And, fuck. I shake my head to knock that image out. Physical attraction is not the problem between us. It’s the rest of the world that’s the problem.
“Yes,” I say. “That’s perfect.”
She balances on a half-submerged rock and lowers the first waterskin into the stream.
A thin line of bubbles rises from the skin as it slowly fills with water.
When she’s done, she hands it to me. I cork it, then hand her another empty skin.
When they’re all full, I hold out my hand and help her step off the rock.
Her fingers are cold from the stream, and the light from the rising sun catches in her dark eyes.
She’s close to me, so close our bodies are almost touching, and my gods, all I want to do in this world is kiss her again and again.
Somewhere in the back of my head, Petrys screams at me to actually talk to her for fuck’s sake. I step back and clear my throat.
“So,” I say. “We’ll reach Marion tomorrow.”
She glances down at the grass between us and makes a sound in the back of her throat that’s not quite a word. I sigh.
“We should talk,” I say. “About what happens next.”
Lilias nods. Her hair trembles in the wind.
“And,” I admit. “I need to apologize.”
“Again?”
I wince. “Yes. For what happened in the hunting lodge.”
“Oh.” She turns away again. “You mean getting drunk, or—”
Her voice falters. The stream gurgles behind us, and the wind pushes her hair back from her face. She takes a step back, then turns to face me. There’s a strange, hard look in her eyes.
“Do you still want a divorce?” she asks.