Chapter Thirty-One
Anton was our best hope then, and he’s our best hope now. I must convince him to reclaim his crown.
I saw the way he looked at the innkeeper. He still cares about Miridran, no matter how he tries to deny it. His love for his country is there, deep down, buried and sealed over like a treasure long forgotten—until someone finds the right key.
Tomorrow is my chance to unearth it. When we return to his palace, he’ll have no choice but to confront everything he’s been avoiding. Already his heart has softened—whether he likes it or not.
As for tonight, I can only hope to soften it more. Massage it, the way one works loose a knotted muscle—slowly, one gentle press at a time.
The creaking stairs signal his return.
Quickly, I shove the pages and pendant under the mattress just in time for Anton to nudge his way back inside.
In his hands is a tray of fresh oat bread, seafood chowder, and a single yet very large slice of pie.
He sets it all on the bed, and I waste no time in joining him, tearing into the bread and spooning chowder into my mouth.
He does the same, except he starts with the pie, which comes as no surprise.
Just when I’m about to poke fun at him, a knock rattles the door.
Then two uniformed maids breeze in, delivering us everything Aimes asked for along with a bottle of wine.
That, they open and pour into two glasses.
In the span of a few blinks, the tub is full of steaming water, and before we’ve finished the pie, they’ve scattered peony petals all along the floor and up the two small steps leading to the tub, and inside it, and all the while, even Anton—Anton—is telling them such efforts aren’t necessary tonight. Fates.
Then we’re alone.
Before I can react, though, he sets a finger underneath my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze.
There’s a glint in his eyes—a grin. “Vasalie, allow me to make one thing clear. No matter how much you beg, I won’t be sleeping with you tonight. I won’t even be claiming the kiss I am owed.”
“What makes you think I’d resort to begging?”
“Please,” he says, rolling his eyes playfully. He unbuttons his vest, his eyes tracking the swallow that bobs within my throat. “You look at me like I’m the pie you’re keen to finish.”
“I most certainly do not—”
“Yes, you do. But no matter your wild, reckless desires, you need to feel safe tonight. My decision is final.” He flicks my nose. “Respect it, please.”
A flush scrawls across my cheeks at his insinuation, but my attention snags on one particular phrase.
You need to feel safe tonight.
My fists, which had clenched of their own accord after seeing the tub, relax.
Even so, I long to tell him that I do feel safe with him, especially considering he’s trying to earn my trust as surely as I want his. More so, he’s putting my needs above the friction—the desire—that blazes between us.
I almost wish he wouldn’t.
But I can’t deny the pain notching my muscles, the fatigue already settling in. The fear, too, when my heart is already a scabbed, barely beating thing. For all that I love him, for all that I’ve decided to put my faith in him, I am still afraid for my heart.
A kiss was one thing.
To lie with him means to drown, and I’m not certain I would ever surface again.
I will try my damndest to restore him to this throne, but I can’t force him to want to keep me forever.
“You can go first,” Anton says, sweeping a chin toward the steaming tub. “I will give you privacy.” He makes for the door.
“Wait,” I hear myself say, my lips running ahead of my good sense. “There’s no point in you leaving.”
He halts—swings back around.
“I—I don’t do well in hot water. I mean…it helps. It feels lovely, of course. But I often feel rather…faint.” The truth, silly as it sounds. “I will have to wait until it’s colder if I’m going to have the stamina to scrub off all this muck. You might as well use the tub first. Unless…”
I hesitate, bite my lip. Then decide against putting voice to what I need.
“Unless?” he prods.
I hook his gaze, intent on telling him it was nothing. Instead I find myself slipping back through time. Here and now—something about the lighting, perhaps—he looks like he did the night Illian demanded I frame Razam for the murder of King Rurik. And I had felt emboldened under the force of it.
The glint in his eyes has always felt like a dare.
“Unless you help me,” I say, despite my revolting heart.
I follow the line of his throat as it bobs. “Whatever you need.”
Needing to let the water cool at least a little, we both pick at the piecrust in silence.
Finish off our glasses of wine—which I gulp greedily, if only for the courage it might afford.
Then, when I am full and satisfied and jittering with a fresh frisson of nerves, Anton collects our dishes, setting them on the tray and then outside the door.
It’s only a bath, I remind myself. He took anything else off the table.
When he approaches me, I force myself to stand straight, as if I could prove to myself that I can be brave in this, too.
I untie the cord at my waist, angling so he can reach the buttons I cannot. I slip in a rapid breath as I feel his hands on my shoulders, his fingertips finding the buttons at my nape.
One by one, he pops them free.
A spiral of steam lifts from the tub as my dress tumbles down my legs. Odd, that I don’t hear him breathe as the seconds stretch on.
With a steadying inhale, I reach for the hook at the back of my bralette, and that I remove, too, along with the slip of underwear I wear, during which I whisper a silent thank-you to the dark of the room.
I am all but wrapped in shadow, save for the faint, colorful glow at my front, and the smallest flick of candlelight at my side.
Even so, I wonder if he’s fixed on the exaggerated curvature of my spine. Or perhaps my imperfect gait. I find I cannot bear to turn toward him. But when he steps in front of me, he looks…tortured, his chest heaving, even as he keeps his eyes on mine.
“You can’t get in wearing that,” I say, though it comes out strangled. I reach for the laces at the front of his tunic, though I know he doesn’t exactly need help.
Still, I unravel them until the tunic is loose.
He leans down, allowing me to pull it over his head, though I avert my gaze, knowing if I were to take him in, my knees would give way.
The corner of my eye betrays me, though, and I get a sense of his profile—the cut of his chest, the lean stomach beneath.
My swallow is thick when I hear him remove his pants, and I remind myself to breathe.
When finally he joins me, he offers me a chivalrous arm. Together, we step up and into the tub.
It’s larger than I had expected, and hotter, and immediately, my vision crackles with stars. But Anton keeps his focus on my face, cataloging every sign of discomfort.
“Perhaps it would be easiest if you leaned against me,” he says, helping me down.
He’s so gentle, so caring, and it strikes me once again that this—it’s him. This is how he is with or without his memories. Furthermore, it’s proof that he and I…Well, it wasn’t the Gathering that drew him to me. It wasn’t our circumstances, or how useful we were to each other.
It was just…us.
Once again, my eyes sting with the realization, and I love him all the more.
Will he recognize the admission the next time he sees my face?
For now, I lie back against the smooth planes of his chest. I feel so much of him.
I feel engulfed. Already my pulse is frenzied, and not just from the heat.
He grabs a nearby cloth, soaks and lathers it, and then he’s running it along every inch of me—my neck, first, then my shoulders.
My arms, which he takes particular care of, twisting and turning them gently.
Next, he guides my head so that the base of my neck rests against his shoulder.
My gaze rises to the stained-glass window: a fragmented rose mid-bloom—or perhaps mid-wither, now that I note the petals strewn around the base of the vase.
It reminds me of the glass rose chandelier in Illian’s palace, the one I’d danced under for years before he imprisoned me.
The washcloth dips down to my clavicle, then pauses, as if to give me the opportunity to object.
You need to feel safe tonight.
I do feel safe.
I take his wrist—guide it down. Allow him to continue his work, which he does, gently. Soft flashes of light filter in through my closed eyelids, the heat now sinking in like a cloud of fog—a reminder of why I need his help. That hadn’t been a lie.
“Too hot?” he breathes into my ear. He must feel the relentless pace of my heart.
“Maybe,” I whisper. “But please, don’t stop.”
I swear I feel his lips mutter a curse just over the curve of my shoulder.
His palm cups my calf.
Then he glides it up, moving the cloth along the length of my leg, my thigh, and he takes his time before switching to the other.
When he is finished, I open my eyes and attempt to wriggle away despite the stars piling into my vision, if only to allow him space to wash. But his arms come around my waist.
“Wait,” he says. “Please.”
Please.
“For what?” I ask, my voice almost entirely caught in my throat.
“When I hold you, I feel like something I’ve lost has been returned,” he says.
I am frozen in the moment, his sentence floating back to me one word, one syllable, at a time.
Something lost.
Did I hallucinate that? But then I feel his hands cupping my hair, twisting it so that it’s off my neck before he nuzzles against it.
This is the most unbearable sort of torture.
“We are not friends,” I breathe, my heart a rabbiting thing. “So tell me, Anton. What are we?”
I need him to put voice to it, even as part of me wants to give in. To risk my heart, no matter how deeply I might sink. To take what he would give me and make peace with it.
But he kissed me under that bridge like I was the expanse of his world.
“What would you wish of me?” he asks. “Tell me you want the moon, and I will cast a reel and lure it forth. If being able to kiss you demands fidelity on my part, then Vasalie, you shall have it.”
Have it. His fidelity. “But you told me—”
“I said I didn’t believe in love,” he says. “I still don’t. But companionship—I suppose there are worse things.”
“Worse things,” I repeat under my breath. I twiddle my thumbs in my hands, then wring out my fingers.
How can I put into words that his companionship isn’t enough? That his devotion, even, isn’t enough? I want the whole of him, selfish as I am. But to say that aloud feels unfair, and so I bite my lip instead and finally turn to face him.
His eyes meet mine, his irises somehow managing to catch glints of moonlight, even as dim as it is. I reach for another cloth, this one clean. He puts a hand on mine to stop me, but I shake my head.
“My turn,” I tell him.