Chapter 45
SAPHIRA
The light was warm on my head and shoulders as I stood in the centre of the glade, limbering up ahead of my afternoon training session with Malachi.
I rubbed my tired, gritty eyes, and blew out my breath, sighing for what felt like the millionth time as my wolf side paced restlessly, tugging me back towards the castle.
Towards Kaeleron.
I was mad at him.
That attempt to hold on to my anger was weak and feeble, and it all slipped through my fingers too easily. I wanted to hold on to it. I wanted to cling to it and do what? Punish him. I wanted to punish him. I wanted him to hurt. To fear as I did. And gods, that was petty of me.
I wanted to punish him for something he had done as a desperate little boy, seeking to save his court and his younger sister, centuries before I had been born.
From the moment he had teleported me to my bedroom and disappeared without dropping a kiss on my lips or my forehead, I had been thinking over everything he had told me.
I hopped up to sit on the stone altar in the middle of the beautiful, lush glade, my gaze on the trees that enclosed the enormous open space, heavy with glowing violet blooms that sparkled as glittering motes of golden light danced in the air.
I closed my eyes and tipped my head back, enjoying the heat of the strange twilight-shrouded sun, pulling Kaeleron into my mind, which was no difficult feat.
I saw him on the threshold of my room after that soft and cautious knock on my door, replayed him striding into my room carrying a tray with several cloches on it as well as some wine.
Together with the throwing knives he had collected from the great hall for me and had carefully cleaned, erasing all traces of blood from them.
I watched him as he had revealed my dinner to me—dinner he had personally overseen in the kitchens, ensuring I had all my favourites, and had wanted to deliver to me himself.
A peace offering.
I had expected him to make himself comfortable, to be the brash and bold king I knew him to be, uncaring of whether I wanted his company or not.
But then he had solemnly wished me goodnight and strode for the door.
He had looked so broken when he had glanced at me before leaving, and despite the spiteful part of me that clung to my anger and hurt, I had wanted to reach for him and reassure him that we could find a way past this, because I was damned if I was going to lose him.
And I would never let him lose me.
Not like he feared.
I had wanted him to stay.
I hadn’t been brave enough to tell him that.
Instead, I had let him go and I had sat on my balcony, enjoying the meal he had carefully prepared for me, sipping the wine as I ran over everything he had told me up on the bluff of Noainfir and tracked backwards from that point, examining our relationship.
My mood had cooled enough for me to place myself in his boots and realise something.
If I had been in his position, I would have struggled to find the right moment to tell him about my alliance with the high king and about what would happen if I finally carried out my vengeance.
I wouldn’t have been able to spot the narrow window between when we had been almost enemies to when we had become lovers.
It had all happened so fast.
Neither of us had planned to fall like this.
Fate had thrown us together so suddenly, and we had both fought it, pretending this attraction between us was nothing, lying to ourselves over and over again. And then just as suddenly we had been in love.
The right time to tell me had been gone in the blink of an eye. Or it had never really been there. Neither of us had realised how deeply we were falling until it was done.
Kaeleron had never had the right time to tell me. I had fallen for him so quickly that even if he had told me before I had left the Shadow Court for my pack, even if he had told me before our nights in the cottage, I would have been upset and hurt, my trust shaken.
But it was still shaken.
Not enough that it had stopped me from going to his room in the dead of night, when the entire castle had begun to tremble, driving me away from the perilous balcony, and I had felt his dark power growing around me.
I had gone to him, my heart and wolf demanding it, and slipped into his rooms, aching to wake him from the nightmare I had been certain would happen as an aftereffect of everything he had dredged up from his past so he could tell me.
Rather than waking him, I had sat by his side and quietly spoken to him as I had stroked his brow and held his hand, soothing him until he had settled again.
And then I had sat there, watching over him as he slept, hating this wall between us—a barrier that had felt so insurmountable in the cold, quiet hours.
I had checked on his side, reassuring myself that he was healing as he had told me, and then I had dropped a kiss on his brow and pulled myself away from him, returning to my room.
I had watched over the town below me, a silent sentinel, and when it had grown light enough, I had walked to the glade and practiced.
I opened my eyes and looked at the targets someone had set up in the glade for me overnight, dummy figures made of rough beige material stuffed with something to make them firm enough for my blades, mimicking flesh, and had daubed several circles of paint in prime places for me to hit.
I had a feeling Kaeleron had made them for me.
Another peace offering.
Gods, I wanted to see him.
He appeared before me in a swirl of shadow and starlight, and I launched from the altar, shock sweeping through me.
“I didn’t summon you, did I?” Those words rushed from my lips as I touched the brand visible above the scooped neck of my blouse.
He frowned. “No.”
But then his hollow silver gaze gained a glimmer of warmth. Of hope.
Because I had just admitted I had been thinking about him and that I had wanted to see him.
“What are you doing here?” That spiteful part of me that still wanted to lash out at him rose to the fore and I busied myself with my blades, wiping each one on a strip of cloth before holstering them beside my ribs. “Shouldn’t you be overseeing your court?”
“I am overseeing something far more important right now. Your training.”
My gaze whipped to him and I noticed what he was wearing.
Black leather armour that covered him from neck to toe.
“But Malachi—”
“Malachi is also overseeing something far more important right now. He is looking for your friends… for your mate.” Kaeleron drew his sword and set it down on the altar.
“He’s not my mate,” I snapped, unable to hold back those words.
He didn’t say anything in response to that, just watched me with emotionless eyes as he pulled a set of thick metal gauntlets from the air and swapped his gloves for them. They covered him from fingertip to elbow, the plate that protected his forearm as thick as the blade of my dagger.
“I saw you earlier.” He fastened the straps, his eyes on them rather than me, his tone distant, but I could hear the wariness in it as he focused on his work.
“I was taking a break from my work and went to the window of my office that overlooks the garden. You were… you were sitting on the wall. Your favourite spot.”
He briefly closed his eyes as he finished with the buckles and then lifted them to me, locking them with mine as his handsome face softened and a trace of emotion brightened his silver gaze.
“You looked so distant and small. All alone in the world. And I recalled how you had sat there many times before, watching the ocean, back when… I wanted to go to you… just as I had always wanted to go to you then.” He sighed and checked the straps of his gauntlets, and then slowly lifted his gaze to mine again.
“Back then, I had wanted to keep you company and perhaps amuse myself with it… enjoying the lightness you stirred in me, an escape from my heavy thoughts and the weight of running this court.”
“And today?” I crossed the narrow strip of grass to the altar, studying him and secretly savouring how comforting his power was as it embraced me, and how those shadows beneath his boots grew restless and reached for me.
“I wanted you to look at me and tell me that I have not ruined everything and that there is a future for us, because I… I…” He looked down at his shadows as tendrils of them snaked across the grass towards my boots.
“I feel as if I am breaking inside, Saphira… and these shadows of mine… these shadows are desperate to wrap around you and hold you to me… to cage you even when I know it would be a mistake. But seeing you there… alone… it hurt.”
I braved a step closer to him, narrowing the distance between us down to only a few feet, and toyed with the worn stone of the altar as I said, “Why did it hurt?”
He met my gaze again. “Because I knew you were thinking of me and what I had failed to tell you, and I hated myself… I hate myself for hurting you.”
He pushed away from the altar before I could lift a hand to reach for him as I wanted, turning his back on me and missing how desperately I wanted to take hold of him too, to cling to him and hear him tell me that we had a future. That somehow we would survive this.
“I was not sure whether to come. I was not sure you would want to see me. I had thought to send Vyr in my stead to test whether you can fight a fae, but I needed to know you were strong enough in case one got their hands on you… in case I was not there to protect you. In case I failed you and they took you from me. I need to know you could survive until I found you.”
I didn’t like to hear him so melancholy. I wanted him brash. I wanted him bold. I wanted him to stand rod-straight and look me in the eye and smirk and say that this was nothing—that nothing could stand between us.