Chapter Forty-Nine
The bravest thing a heart can do
Is trust another with its truth
Jax doesn’t remember deciding to leave.
One moment she is standing in the circle, the air thick with tension and voices scraping against one another, and the next she is beyond the lanternlight, the noise fading behind her until it becomes distant and indistinct.
The quiet out here is different. Colder. Cleaner. Less full of shit, nothing to blame, and no one to insult.
She leans her shoulder against the stone, folding her arms tightly across her chest as if she can contain the agitation still moving through her body. It doesn’t work. It never does. The words follow her anyway, settling under her skin where they’re hardest to ignore.
Your head hits the pillow and it never knows peace.
Jax exhales through her nose, slow and controlled, dragging a hand across her mouth as if she can physically remove the thought.
“She talks too much,” she mutters. “Always has.”
The defense is automatic. So is the lie.
Because vulnerability is leverage, and Jax refuses to give it. Not like she did with Maldrak.
Under the touch of his calloused hands that fed her softness and affection. The kind of touch that loosened her lips and had her spilling secrets she swore to the depths of herself. The kind of secrets that ended a kingdom, lives, and her honor in one fell swoop.
So she makes the world hate her as much as she hates herself. It’s what she deserves.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
She pushes off the wall before the silence can settle too deeply, already turning away, already choosing movement over stillness. Staying here means thinking, and thinking means—
“Running again?”
Ronyn’s voice reaches her before she’s taken more than a few steps. Patient and forgiving and present. Always. Just there.
Jax stills, her back to him, irritation rising fast enough to mask everything else.
“I’m not running,” she snaps, her gaze fixed ahead into the dark. “I’m removing myself from a room full of insufferable people with too many opinions.”
There’s a brief pause behind her.
“There seems to be a very significant overlap between there and here, Jaxxy,” Ronyn observes wryly.
She almost smiles. Almost. But she doesn’t. Things are still too fractured between them.
They haven’t spoken about it. Not since the inn in Vyrhal. Since she was cruel and unfair. Not that she’ll admit it out loud.
Jax turns then, slowly and deliberately, meeting his gaze across the space between them.
Ronyn leans against the stone like he’d already decided where this conversation would happen and simply waited for her to catch up to it.
“Don’t you have a performance to give?” she snaps. “A room to manage?” she asks.
He huffs like he’s already exhausted by her. “They’re managing themselves,” he counters smoothly, ignoring her jab.
“They’re about ten heartbeats away from tearing each other apart.”
He smirks.
“I think it helps that you’re no longer in the room.”
The answer lands smoothly. And this time, she can’t help it—she smiles. Small, but there.
Jax shifts her weight, folding her arms tighter, reinforcing the distance between them even as she holds his gaze.
“You shouldn’t have followed me out here.”
“Why? Because then we’d be adults and actually speak to one another?”
No apology. No justification. Just fucking maturity she doesn’t have the energy to face. It unsettles her more than if he’d argued.
Silence settles between them—the deliberate kind. He doesn’t rush to fill it. He doesn’t push. He just stands there, steady in a way that feels more intrusive than anything he could have said.
“Marin hit a nerve,” he says after a moment.
It’s not a question.
Jax’s jaw tightens.
“She…” but Jax trails off.
“She spoke truths you didn’t like?” Ronyn ventures.
Her eyes sharpen, defensiveness flashing there before she can stop it.
“I don’t need you fucking analyzing me, Ronyn,” she says, stabbing a finger in his direction.
“Good,” he says easily. “But if I were to do that, I’d say you’re letting the past dictate everything.”
Jax stills.
But Ronyn keeps going. “You let what happened with him paint everyone with the same brush. No one is trustworthy. No one is genuine. But maybe, Jax, someone might actually want to be a friend to you.”
Then, quieter—
“Like me.”
The words land harder than they should. Warmth sparks in her chest, and she hates it. Resists it. Shoves it down.
“I notice things, Jaxxy.”
Jax shifts again, restless now, her weight moving from one foot to the other as if she can physically step out of the moment if she just keeps moving.
“Then notice this,” she says, stepping closer, reclaiming space before he can take it. “I’m fine.”
His gaze drops briefly, taking in the tension she’s holding in her body, the tight set of her shoulders, the way her fingers curl against her arms. And she hates the way he takes her in, notices her, clocks everything. She squirms under the scrutiny.
Then he looks back at her.
“Yeah,” he says. “I can see that.”
There’s no mockery in it. Just quiet accuracy. And that’s worse.
“I’m the only one who understands you, Jaxxy.”
Maldrak’s voice floods her mind. Low. Certain. Too close. His hand brushes her jaw like he had a right to be there.
“You don’t have to fight me, Jax. You’re safe with me.”
She blinks.
And he’s gone.
Stone. Cold air. Ronyn. Not him.
“I’ve heard it all before,” she murmurs, voice cold and low.
But ancient rage flares sharp and hot in her chest, and her tongue lashes out with venom she’s learned to wield like a weapon.
“I’ve listened to men promise safety over and over again, Ronyn. I’ve been fed a narrative of protection that has never come to pass. Women with power are always told the same shit—that our safety lies with men. And you know what I’ve learned, Ronyn?” she hisses, teeth bared in a vicious promise.
But Ronyn doesn’t flinch.
He leans in. “What did you learn, Jaxxy? Tell me.” He says the words with sincerity. Like he actually wants to know. And the honesty in his eyes unsettles her.
“I’ve learned that men’s promises exist only to further their own agendas. That promises are lies dressed up as oaths.”
Her voice breaks.
Ronyn’s brow furrows, and for a flash, she thinks she sees pity there.
Her mouth twists into a snarl at the sight.
“I can see that, Jax. I can. Power is pooled at the feet of a powerful few, and they are the ones making promises to you,” Ronyn agrees, but he pauses, weighing his next words very carefully.
“But how do you see this going, Jaxxy? You hate yourself and everyone around you until the Stars claim you back? You despise your existence and never know joy, love… peace?”
Your head hits the pillow and it never knows peace.
The words reverberate through her skull like a taunt again.
“You trusted the wrong person. You don’t deserve to suffer for the rest of your existence for it. You deserve peace,” Ronyn murmurs.
She fights the tears that threaten to spill, choking them down as she swallows thickly. She squeezes her eyes shut, letting out a barely-controlled exhale.
Then, her voice comes out a croak.
“My father promised safety, then he offered me as a wife to Caeloria’s Prince when I was eleven.
When Maireth said no, he tried to give me to Kael in exchange for nothing more than Aurius’s favor.
Maldrak offered me safety and he took the sanctity of my word and broke it in two.
He took my body, my affection, my secrets, and made a mockery of it all. ”
Ronyn reaches for her.
She flinches like she’s been struck.
Ronyn doesn’t react. He simply lets his arms hang by his sides. He doesn’t react the way she expects. Because in his eyes… is understanding.
“I’m sorry that happened to you, Jaxxy. You deserve better,” he offers, not an ounce of pity in his tone. “I will not make a mockery of you.” The words are firm, sharp—a vow. He clears his throat. “I would like to give you better. To show you what better looks like.”
She scoffs, wiping tears from her face with the back of her hand, hating that they fall without her permission.
“How, Ronyn? Another fucking trip to the inn?” she snaps, but fragility breaks through her tone.
His face remains neutral, unfazed by her cruelty.
She knew she pushed him too far in Vyrhal. Every time, really.
They’d had sex before. Rough and disconnected and nothing more than two people seeking release in the touch of another.
But when he kissed her in Vyrhal, when he looked at her, when he touched her…
he did it with such sincerity, such tenderness, such veneration, that she could not stay.
Could not let herself feel that. Because that was the fastest route to destruction.
It wasn’t sex—it was making love. And that she could not do.
“Well…” he says, dragging his hands through his shaggy chestnut hair like he’s nervous, “I was thinking… maybe I could just hold you?”
Jax’s eyes narrow.
Maybe I could just hold you.
The words rattle through her skull.
He purses his lips, then bites down like he’s waiting for the guillotine to drop. And maybe that’s a reasonable expectation after everything she’s done. Everything she’s said. He couldn’t possibly be waiting for kindness.
Her body tenses, uncomfortable at the suggestion.
The air thickens.
And Ronyn can’t take it, so he keeps talking.
Fast, intense, rushed. “I know you think needing people is a weakness, Jaxxy. But it’s not.
It’s strength. Letting yourself receive—to take from someone who willingly gives to you requires trust. It’s a risk, and that’s what makes it strong.
I want you to need me. I want you to lean on me.
I know you want to laugh in my face and call me a weak prick or something, but please, let me show you. Let me give to you.”
The words settle between them, heavier than anything they’ve said all night.
Maybe I could just hold you.
Jax studies him, searching for the angle, the expectation, the part where this turns into something she understands.
But it doesn’t.
No manipulation, no game, no coercion.