29. Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
Zantara rises from her chair. “Since I am not actually here, I will bid you all farewell before the celebration. Lazzus, I pray this really is a change for the better, and that your days of conquering are over. I doubt you know how to be peaceful for long, but if you are sincere, then I welcome this and will forgive you for the sake of our citizens. Do not make me have to start a war again to protect the realms from you. This is the only mercy and forgiveness I will extend to you. Do not throw it away.”
I keep my eyes locked on hers and show no emotion. “Do not take what’s mine, and we will have no issues.”
“I feel the same.” She flickers a few times before vanishing completely.
Sarek blocks the exit. “You said my daughter would get a choice on where she wants to go.”
Dinivan nods and gathers his things. “Yes, she should. Evelia, if you wouldn’t mind going with CiCi and me so we can discuss this.”
Evelia looks at me for a brief moment before following our hosts and the mediators out of the room. Apricity snoozes with her head on the table and a wineglass still in her hand.
Sarek waits until they’ve left to put a dagger to my throat. “She is leaving with me.”
“All the peace talks were a sham.”
“Queen Zantara wanted them, and they seemed opportune to get my daughter back.”
“So you could give her to someone who will not love her. Someone who will not cherish her and give her the desires of her heart. Anyone but me will see her as a token to get what they want from you.”
“As though that’s not exactly what she’s always been to you.”
I turn to smoke and have the knife turned on him before he realizes I’ve moved. “When will you realize I have needed nothing from you, and if it weren’t for my love for your daughter, your kingdom would be destroyed? You’d have been gutted just enough to suffer as you rot in the sun for hours.”
“You’ve thought that through.”
“Yes, I have thought of many ways to make you suffer in death, and all that stays my hand is Evelia.”
“I will get my daughter back!”
“Says the man with the knife to his throat.” I nod to his wife. “Like I would ever let her return to you with the way you treat her mother! She has to be drunk to be in the same room as you.”
“Maybe it’s that you have stolen her daughter, and she has been unable to cope with the loss.”
“She hasn’t been present in her daughter’s life for some time. Where was she at the wedding? She certainly wasn’t there. I killed everyone in that room except for you, the priest, and the prince.”
My bones and muscles know Evelia, and they ache when she is close.
It’s something that occurred after our blood bond and vows.
She’s approaching, so I toss Sarek across the room and walk out into the hall to meet her before she finds me threatening her father.
It won’t matter to her that he threatened me first.
She sends me a smile that turns tense, like for a moment she saw her best friend before remembering he became her kidnapper. “Shall we go to the ball?”
I accept her outstretched hand. “You didn’t tell them you wanted to leave me?”
“Would you have let me go if I had?”
It takes me far too long to answer. “Is it truly what you want?”
“I’m not sure what I want anymore, but I promised to play your wife on this trip for the sake of peace, and I will continue to do so. There are many things I could forgive you for, Lazzus. Many things, but not everything. It’s what I struggle with.”
“Killing your wedding guests?”
“Gods no. They were all cruel, terrible people whose greed did awful things to the innocent. That is the close company my father kept. Those who gained riches through exploitation. Not that you knew it, but you did the realm a favor. Perhaps that should make it inexcusable because you killed them not knowing that, but I have long wondered if you were the monster the realm needed.”
“Then what can’t you forgive me for? Kidnapping you. It’s hard for me to regret not losing you to that prince.” I spit his title out.
“No, I have forgiven you for that as well. That was a fantasy I had for so long. That you would swoop in and steal me from my very horrible life. I was angry at you for a long time, but after much thought, it was also an exciting moment for me. You were always the one thing I loved most about my life.”
“Then what? My conquering. What still keeps you from my bed?”
Orchestra music flows from the room we’ve arrived at, but I pull Evelia back to finish our conversation.
Dinivan exits the ballroom in a plain blue collared shirt and black pants. “Let’s celebrate the successful peace talks!”
Evelia hooks her arm in mine and tries her best to drag me forward. “Yes! Dance with me, Lazzus!”
The Hermit King smacks my back hard and squeezes my shoulder. “You have a good one right there.”
“Yes, indeed. She’s the greatest gift of my life.”
Evelia pulls me to the center of the room, and I try to remember everything she taught me years ago.
I stumble a bit, but she steadies me. The music turns gentle, and holding her is something I know well.
She rests her head against my chest, and I fear the ending of this night.
The return home may very well end the role she promised me she’d play.
To go back to isolation after having her so close will feel as an eternity in a barren desert.
The music picks up, and Evelia dances around me in perfection, not laughing too much at my lack of skills. I do my best to give her the night she wants, and by the end of the celebration, I let loose, not thinking too much about it.
She laughs more times in the few hours we dance than she has in months. And for this night, we are what we once were, which is carefree because we are together and with the person who understands us most. The one who only wants the other for nothing more than their company.
The last dance of the night is announced, and I bring Evelia back against my chest. She pushes up on her tiptoes and meets my lips with hers.
She parts my lips with her tongue, and I tangle mine with hers.
Kissing her is so easy, something that we fall into as though it’s why we were both created.
My soul insists it is. It insists I was made to love her and not to destroy worlds.
If I have her, then I can be content with my kingdom.
I could even give up my kingdom. As long as I have Evelia, the need to conquer loses all appeal.