Chapter 39
“I’ll send word of our offer to Mercora in the morning,” Jace says, now settled in a leather armchair beside the study’s roaring fireplace. “If he accepts, we’ll pack for the journey south.”
He traces a thumb over the delicate gold-plated circlet tucked on the table beside him, wandering through his own thoughts. The opal stone at its center gleams almost golden in the crackling fire light and casts an otherworldly aura throughout the room.
“And what if he refuses?” Roe sinks further into the settee cushion like a house cat opposite me.
“We’ll cross the border regardless,” Jace replies. “But Mercora won’t refuse. At our last unification council he asked me more than once about my mother’s circlet. A pathetic show of his hand if you ask me, but I’m certain he’ll agree.”
“Cosmic blessings aside, why is he so desperate to get his hands on it?” I take a sip of my wine.
The buzz of a full belly, dry fire, and a second glass hits me with a wave of exhaustion warming my cheeks.
My neck still throbs at each puncture mark, and the new bandages around my wrists cling a little too tightly, but I’ve fallen into a sleepy comfort.
With each pop of the half-scorched log in the fireplace, my eyelids heavy.
I tell myself I’ll revisit all of the events of today tomorrow.
Tonight, I’m fucking tired. There’s nothing left to offer my spiraling thoughts, so I swallow them down with another sip of wine.
“Old grudges. Mercora always claimed it should’ve been given to Sea. The histories will write they were Sovereign's closest allies.” Jace doesn’t meet my eyes when he replies. He’s avoided me since we returned from the tomb, and I don’t blame him for it.
Fuck, I haven’t worked up the courage either, holding him in peripheral glances, but some traitorous part of me begs for his focus. Things feel different between us now, not in an obvious sense, but subtly—insidiously.
I can’t shake the feel of his lips against me, holding me one bite away from death. The thrill of it still tightens my belly even now, and I know it shouldn’t.
Gods be good, I’m in deep shit.
He’s lethal, monstrous, cold, but my pulse spikes when he enters the room. I stop breathing when his eyes land on mine. He’s the first face I search, and my chest aches in his absence. I tell myself it’s a reaction of fear, of hatred.
Maybe it’s not, though.
“What held you back in the tomb?” Roe asks.
My fingers grip my now empty wine glass “I don’t know. Something drew me to that burial chamber, and I couldn’t help myself I guess. Who’s buried there?”
“That’s Dracae Torr’s tomb,” Jace says.
The fireplace freezes over. “Dracae Torr? You mean the guardian rider? But the tomb wasn’t any different from the others. I thought guardian riders were buried with high honors.”
“Most of them are, but he wanted a simple grave, one indiscernible from the other riders who are laid to rest. Torr felt the burden rather than the honor of bonding the guardian. He was simply a rider, a conduit for the cosmic cycle.”
“There was a voice…barely a whisper when I placed my hand on his casket.” My vision blurs out of focus. Had Dracae Torr tried to communicate with me? No less than legendary, he brought Shadow into the first faction unification. The knot in my throat refuses to loosen.
Jace’s expression is utter disbelief. “You need to tell us exactly what happened in there.”
“What do you mean by a voice?” Isra leans over his knees.
My heart flutters like a caged bird as all three sets of eyes land on mine. “I couldn’t make out much of what it said, and what I had made sense of was nothing more than nonsense.”
“Fuck…” Isra mutters.
“I was half-crazed in there and creeped the fuck out. Maybe I imagined it or mistook the whistle of a draft for whispers? Why would Dracae Torr be reaching out to me? I’m nobody important.”
Jace’s midnight eyes flare as they meet mine. “You’re most certainly not nobody, starling.”
The blood rushes straight to my face, and suddenly I find myself very interested in a healed cut on my hand. Silence washes in like a fog between us, heavy and exhaustive.
“Alright, I need to go to bed. It’s way too late for this sentimental shit.” Roe untucks her crossed legs. The click of her heels pounds on my temples as she takes her leave.
“We’ll figure this out. Try not to worry about it all tonight.” Isra pats a hand on my shoulder and offers a reassuring smile. “At least you’re not stuck with those soulless riders for eternity.”
“Very comforting, Isra, thank you.”
Jace leans against the bookshelf, battling to keep indifferent. His fingers grip the wood so tightly, I swear he might crack it.
Only when Isra has disappeared through the corridor do I leave my own cushioned warmth.
“Jace?” My tongue dances over my teeth, but I can’t help myself. Whether it’s the constant need to clear the kindled air between us or my irritating inability to keep my fucking mouth shut, I offer the catalyst and open the door for this confrontation.
“Yes, starling?”
My boots beg to close the distance between us, ignoring the alarm bells ringing through my head.
He’s three steps away, standing rigid and staring right at me.
Those eyes look through mine, burning into my very core.
With each pump of my heart, the impasse between us fractures.
I could run to him, spill myself on the floor and fall into his gravity if I so choose.
It was I who crushed the blossom of whatever seeded between us back in Storm, right? Now only I can fix it.
Just three steps. That’s all there is between us.
But his lies, his concealed truths…how can I trust anything? I took the leap, exposing my every vulnerability, and in return I’ve gotten only steel-cut half-truths and distorted secrets.
“Thank you for coming back for me.” I force my storming thoughts silent.
“It was my honor.” His tone softens. “I’m not a threat to you, Nova. Not an intentional one at least.”
“I know. You’re not a monster. It was cruel of me to say that,” I say, swallowing the ache of guilt in my chest.
“You were rightfully angry.”
The fire crackles between us like it attempts to fill the quiet.
“I should get some sleep.” I gesture toward the hallway.
The silence between us hangs with things left unspoken, but I can’t force them free.
Not anymore than I can oblige my boots’ pleas and take the three steps.
Jace follows my line of sight to the doorway, conflict etched at the creases of his eyes.
“Go rest,” he says before flipping a tome open. “You lost a lot of blood tonight.”
His thumb drags down the page’s edge, delicate and slow. In the gilded firelight, it’s hard to imagine what lurks under those fingers, waiting for a taste of blood.
“Did you need something else?” He glances up at me again.
Fuck, I’m staring. Frozen and entranced by the way he flicks his index finger over the page’s dog-eared corner.
“What? Uh, no…I…” My cheeks blaze, and it’s not the wine that’s sparked the flames.
Jace’s lip curls, like he’s celebrating a silent victory. “Goodnight, starling.”