Chapter Seventeen #2
My spine locks, but I force it to relax, cursing Sundar in my mind.
I knew Anton was going to suspect something, just as he had at the Gathering.
And I can’t have him catching on—not when he is unable to hear the truth and not when his allegiance lies with Moranya.
Not when he might cast me out because of it.
But I can’t falter beneath his surveillance, so I straighten, collecting my flute. “I love her. Why is it so difficult to believe I’d search every corner of this world until I find her?”
He merely scoffs. “Love is well and good, for all it lasts.”
Love is a fairy tale, he had said. How much he strives to hate it. Discredit it.
“If you really loved her,” he continues, “if you wanted to be with her so badly, you would relinquish your mortal flesh and stay here. Souls have an easier time finding their loved ones should they desire it, and yet you are determined to return to your world hereafter, or so you say. So tell me, Vastianna, what are you really doing in the Abyssal? Why do you need to find her now, rather than wait until you can reunite in death?”
Because love fades after death? I think to say. But he won’t care about that.
“It’s sad, really, that you think so little of love.” I unfold my napkin, arranging it on my lap. “If you don’t want me in the Abyssal, then tell me how to find her codex.”
If I can get him to admit an easier method…
“You know I cannot.”
“Because you are not really a king—not the way Moranya would like you to believe.”
I expect—hope, even—for it to rile him. Perhaps plant a seed of doubt in him about Moranya. Instead he merely says, “Even kings are bound to the laws of their land.”
“But why make you a king in the first place? What is your arrangement with her? Is it anything like ours?”
“Jealous, are we?” His rings clink against his flute as he wraps his fingers around it.
He tips the cup to his lips, draining it completely, and then he’s refilling it to the brim.
“I assure you, our arrangement is one of a kind. You still haven’t told me how you made it into Morta’s Lair to begin with, by the way. ”
“I don’t see why I should, Sire.” Not that I could if I wanted to.
“You are steadfastly evasive,” he says. “It’s slightly infuriating.”
“And you are wasting away here. Also infuriating.”
His viridian gaze is like the flat of a dagger under my chin, his tone edged with warning. “Care to elaborate on that?”
I spear a round of purple melon with my fork. “I admit you spend one hour, maybe two, each day doing something somewhat useful, with the appeals you entertain. But what about the rest of your time? You lounge about, doing little more than indulging in pleasures that barely pique your interest.”
An assumption, but it shuts him up—for a whole two seconds.
“Then come to me tonight,” he says. “Show me what I am missing.”
I nearly choke. “Excuse me?”
“Pique my interest.”
I take a moment to dab my lips with a napkin in an attempt to gather myself. “I have already piqued your interest, Sire, or else I would not be here.”
“All the more reason to join me tonight.”
He…
He is trying to lure me into his bed, the dolt. I resist the urge to ball up my napkin and chuck it at his face. “Why? So I can be a fleeting indulgence like everyone else? So you can add me to the notch on your bedpost and forget me thereafter?”
“I don’t think I will forget the only mortal among the dead. And besides, I find you quite ravishing. Do you deny yourself pleasure the same way you would deny me?”
“Unlike you, my life does not center on pleasure.”
“But why not let yourself have even a little? Life is meant to be enjoyed.”
“This isn’t really life, now, is it?” And yet, secretly, the temptation sinks in—more so with the way he leans in, the scent of him filling my nose. I can’t remember the last time I ever really enjoyed myself for more than a few minutes.
He investigates my hesitation. “You find me attractive, yes?” Despite my best efforts, he sees the agreement on my face, the heat splotching my cheeks. “What really stays your pleasure, then?”
“Your persistence is aggravating and is—quite frankly—not a desirable quality—”
“Give me one reason,” he says. “Be honest, for once.”
At my wit’s end, I clank down my fork. “I do not share, Sire.”
The truth, as simple as that. Others can. I wouldn’t judge them for it. But Anton…
I couldn’t bear to open up to him again, only to see him move on night after night, even knowing it’s a coping mechanism. He told me that himself. He spoke of how hollow he felt afterward, how empty.
Yet I am selfish. My heart beats for him, but I can’t be his second choice the way I would have been for Copelan. I would rather be alone.
“Greedy, are we?” he says, grinning. But behind that grin is something dark, oppressive. Something that reveals the hurt that time has yet to heal—from the years of rejection, the betrayals. The lies he now believes.
“Can you blame me for protecting myself?” I ask.
“I suppose not,” he says, rolling up the sleeves of his robe. “But I’d ask you to reconsider. You have nothing to fear from me. Give me the chance to prove it.”
I do not fear you.
I fear only that I might not succeed in bringing you back.
“Besides,” he adds, his gaze touching the stiff line of my shoulders, “nothing relieves tension like a night spent being adored in every imaginable way. And adore you I would.”
My lungs refuse to breathe for a solid three seconds.