Chapter 13
I'm sure it doesn't help, but I was more confident in his decisions than yours.
— ALARIC SARE’S PAPERS FOR EMBERLINE ARKOVA
Though waiting was torture, at least I didn’t have time to worry.
Hart and I were assigned chores just like everyone else in camp.
Collecting firewood allowed me to hike farther into the mountains and talk to Charon.
While he knew we had to separate for me to enter the city, he wasn’t exactly thrilled about it.
“Do you want to wait while we figure out the trials?” I asked before I returned to camp the following afternoon. It had been nagging at me since we’d returned to Kavios. “I didn’t intend for you to put your life on hold once we freed you.”
Charon huffed. Smoke billowed, and he dropped his snout to the forest floor like he couldn’t be bothered to respond.
“That connection you felt with me through the Oldwood. You don’t seem to realize that I felt it, too.
I will help you because I want to see Rodric dethroned for what he did to me and my magic.
But I will also help you because I’m with you. ”
I knew I’d need him, as Scarlett had warned. To me, that had never been in doubt. “But is this what you want to do? One thing I’ve learned in all of this is that no one likes some goddess-defined connection driving their fate.”
“We are friends, Champion.” He tilted his head in thought. “Or, at least, you are mine. I know the Cursed has made you distrustful, but please believe me when I say I’m exactly where I want to be.”
His words warmed something inside of me as much as they pierced.
I had considered him my friend for so long.
He was right; I’d never considered that he felt the same.
My perception of everything was upside down, and I didn’t think I could lay all of that at Hart’s feet.
As he had said in his anger, I needed to take responsibility for my own choices.
“Stop worrying about me, Champion. Focus on your trials. Have you picked which one you’ll attempt first?”
My sigh was heavy. We were both experts at changing the topic. I had considered the list of emotions, but each one was worse than the last. As Hart had said on the flight here, it seemed impossible. “I really don’t know.”
Charon made a coughing sound. “You have plenty of sadness, if you don’t mind my saying.”
I flinched at the words, as always happened when the scene in the throne room replayed.
Sadness didn’t cover how much I missed Alaric.
How much I wanted to say to him. Yet, another thought rose just as quickly.
Not the despair of losing Alaric but the pit of emptiness in my stomach every time I thought of what Hart and I almost were.
“I’m not sure I have the strength to relive what’s necessary.” I lifted my hand and let it drop to my side in resignation. Charon’s snout scooted into place where it fell. His scales were cool to the touch as I patted them.
“You have the strength. I fear you’ve buried it with everything else.”
I patted him a little harder than necessary after that.
Then we turned my bag into a leg strap for him so he could keep Alaric’s papers safe.
I’d read the papers a dozen more times on the return trip from Linia, but still I protected them.
I wouldn’t risk the last words I had from my uncle being lost when we entered the city.
The following day passed just as quickly, and before I knew it, it was time to meet the supply wagon on the Oldwood Path. We waited in the trees as a cart rumbled steadily down the dirt road. The driver, a man who appeared to be in his fifties, stopped after a complicated set of bird calls.
It shouldn’t surprise me that this wasn’t Hart’s first time moving things into the city in such a manner.
The man hopped down from the front of the horse-drawn wagon and searched the empty space. Hart wasted no time emerging from behind the tree. The man’s smile said they’d done business together dozens of times. He only hesitated slightly when he noticed me. “Where are your packages?”
Hart grinned as the man peered around his broad shoulders, searching for boxes. When realization seemed to hit, the trader shook his head. “You can’t be serious.”
“Come on, Carl. Where is your sense of adventure?”
The trader continued to shake his head. “Both of you?”
When Hart nodded, Carl’s concern increased. “Does she…” Then he seemed to realize he should speak to me directly. He met my gaze around Hart’s frame. “Do you know what he has planned?”
I shrugged. “I’m never thrilled with his plans, but this seems our only chance to get into Kavios.”
Carl rubbed his chin. “I’m not even sure you’ll both fit.”
“Let’s stop hypothesizing and try,” Hart said before I could pry into that specific detail.
Hart took long strides toward the wagon before Carl could further protest. It was covered with a dingy tan tarp, but I knew better than to believe we would simply hide beneath it.
The guards at the Eastern Gate inspected most cargo.
King Rodric had always been particular about what was allowed in Kavios, and that was before he had the added motivation of searching for Hart and me.
“What exactly do you have in mind?” I asked as Hart removed the boxes that already filled the wagon.
“There’s a false bottom,” he said, and lifted a slab of wood from the base of the cart. It had looked just like all the rest. I wouldn’t have noticed there was anything beneath it. He stepped up onto the wagon, handed Carl the piece of wood, then offered me his hand.
My fingers were gloved, but still I hesitated with such an unnecessary action.
Taking Hart’s hand had meant so much to me when we first began to trust each other.
Even with the gloves, it was an intimacy that I shared with few.
There was so much power in physical touch, even more, now, between Hart and me.
I shivered as I considered how much he affected me even without skin-to-skin contact.
I didn’t know if an emotion flared or if he was simply that sure of himself, but Hart’s stupid smirk made an appearance. His piercing green eyes matched the rich tones of the dense trees surrounding us. He gave no quarter as his hand waited, outstretched.
This was why we were here, wasn’t it? If shortly I’d have to offer him up the depths of my soul—my darkest fears, my unspoken desires—then surely, I could take his hand to step onto the wagon.
Carl coughed lightly behind me, reminding me it wasn’t just Hart and me in the woods. It worried me how easily I could forget others when confronted with this version of my guard. That fact hadn’t changed since the first day I saw him and our eyes had locked in the mirror in Alaric’s workshop.
“Chaos?” It was a whisper, a challenge issued only for me.
I wanted to huff, to express my frustration at this entire situation, but the moment my fingers slid against his, the moment his curled beneath my hand to steady me as I stepped into the wagon, all thoughts left me.
This was unfortunate.
The sizzle of our connection was alive and well, no matter how much time I’d spent ignoring it. I pulled myself from the haze enough to look down at the uncovered space, the reason we were standing in a wagon together to begin with. The space was … small.
My voice shook more than I cared for. “We’re both going to hide in there?”
The cubby was not the full length and width of the cart. It was much smaller. I now understood Carl’s hesitation.
“It’s the best option we’ve got, Chaos.”
I dropped his hand in an effort to regain some control. “Fine.”
The idea of distance was laughable as my gaze returned to the hidden compartment. Soon, the entire length of our bodies would be crammed against each other. What I felt in our fingers would be little more than a drop of rain before the breaking of a storm.
“How long is the ride?” I looked to Carl, unwilling or unable to see what I knew would be the taunt of Hart’s raised eyebrow.
“We’re still a good few miles from the gates. You’ll need to be in there for at least an hour to pass safely and get to the drop-off point in Kavios.”
I sucked in a deep breath. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”
Maybe if I said it enough times, it would be true.
Carl must have seen some resolve in my features because he didn’t question my decision.
He only waited patiently as Hart crawled down into the space and lay on his side.
It was not deep, and the breadth of his shoulders made me wonder if the cover would even close the way he lay.
I didn’t question it. My mind raced ahead to how this would play out.
Once I crawled in, he’d curl around me to help scrunch his size.
Goddess, why?
It was a fleeting thought, and one I didn’t expect answered. Eris may have chosen me, but she’d done little for me throughout my lifetime.
I couldn’t avoid this forever, so finally, I stepped down into the hidden compartment and laid my back to Hart’s chest. To his credit, he tried to keep space between us, but as Carl placed the plank back in place, Hart realized what I had seen from above.
He had to curl ever closer to me so that his shoulder wasn’t in the way of the cubby’s lid.
Panic flooded me, and my heartbeat raced.
His breath in my ear felt like both a dream and a nightmare. “This is tighter than I thought. Do you have enough space?”
I didn’t, but I knew my emotions betrayed me in every way.
My response was irrelevant. The weight of him surrounding me as the cart started to move was …
solid. Reassuring. It felt good. Which only made my heart beat faster.
I tasted his amusement on my tongue, something sweet and fruity, before he spoke.
“We’ve got at least thirty minutes until we even reach the gate. Do you plan to ignore me the entire time?”
His breath was warm on my skin, which was already alight at all the places our bodies ran against each other. I feared what he’d learn on this ride. I feared the heat that curled low in my belly with him so effortlessly wrapped around me. No part of me feared the man himself.
I thought he knew it, too. And hadn’t that always been the problem?
“What do you want to talk about, Hart?” The cart jostled over bumps in the road, and I fell back into his chest. “How nice it is that after weeks of trying to keep some space between us, we have no choice but to eradicate every inch of both physical and emotional separation?”
He laughed, and it shot warmth through me the way tossing a new log on the fire shot sparks and heat into the night sky.
“At least you’re being honest now. I’ll thank our anger trial for that.”
The weight of the pendant knocked against my sternum as the cart rolled forward. Hart and I hadn’t discussed our new inability to access physical strength. “Are you worried about our missing magic?”
His response wasn’t quite a chuckle, more like a long exhale with a few huffs.
I’d say it was almost relief. “I fought so hard for so long to free myself from anything to do with goddesses. Not having access to one of the magics, it feels like a step I never thought I’d take—even if it’s only a step toward breaking our curses.
” The hand that rested lightly on my hip tensed like he wanted to grip me, but he did everything in his power to resist. “I think I’d given up on the possibility. ”
Something Scarlett had said gnawed at me.
A way for you to free yourself, if you so choose.
I hadn’t given her words their due consideration in the moment, but I knew we needed to.
These trials presented a way to break free.
The only thing I’d wanted to be free of was this curse, but that wasn’t true for Hart, was it?
I tucked the thought away for later. We could discuss it if we proved we could make any progress on the trials. “If you didn’t want your magic, then why were you searching for me? You said one of your deals with Alaric was to source information on Chaos’s Champion.”
“What else could I do? After I’d tried a dozen other paths and failed, I knew it was the only way all of this would end.”
Another bump in the road sent me back into Hart’s arms. I wiggled to put a few inches of space between us.
“Chaos.” He sounded pained. “It’d be better for everyone if you … didn’t do that.”
My cheeks heated as I tipped back into him with another bump in the road.
The evidence of my effect on him pressed against his trousers.
My mind blanked, and I wished I could think about literally anything else.
“If you wanted me to end the game, if you never meant me any harm, why didn’t you just tell me who you were? ”
I heard his swallow, his hesitation, because that was the real question, wasn’t it?
He claimed he was not a threat to me. He claimed he didn’t want the throne.
Inherently, I believed both things. I don’t think I’d ever doubted them.
But if all of that was true, why lie to me? Why not tell me who he was?
“Will you believe that I didn’t know if my intentions would matter to you?”
A scoff slipped through my lips. “You didn’t trust me? That’s rich.”
“Terrible stories had been told of the Cursed King. I am Themis’s Champion, the one to bring order to the city that betrayed you.
I was single-handedly responsible for sourcing the first adamas stone and for giving others the power to misuse it.
” He huffed again, part humorless laugh, part exasperation.
“No part of who I was deserved you, but against all odds, you thought differently.”
My swallow was thick, and I couldn’t hide it in these close quarters.
For the first time, something salty tinged the back of my tongue.
As with Hart’s other emotions, I recognized this for what it was: his fear.
He feared my judgment. He was scared of my reaction.
I honestly couldn’t say what my reaction would have been had I learned the truth from Hart himself, but I knew it was mine to have nonetheless.
“You should have let me decide. I put my trust in you, Hart, and you never did the same with me.”
Carl tapped two times on the wagon seat. The signal we approached the gate. Hart’s teeth ground together as he tucked away his response.
Unfortunately, I found myself desperate to hear it.