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“You won’t die,” he whispers. “The Order doesn’t deserve your life—and it will never deserve your death.” I swallow tightly. Feel my eyes burning at their corners. “Because I’m its king?” “No. Because you’re Bree.” Nick’s breath blows warm against my neck, intimate. “Brilliant, beautiful, brave Bree.”
All I know is that Nick feels like… “Cliffside at the ocean. Touching the sky.” His voice is a quiet ache. “Touching the horizon.”
“We’ll figure it out. We’re gonna be fine.” “How do you know that?” “Because it’s you and me.” I blink at him, gaping. “Why do you say that like it’s… like that’s an answer?” “Because it is an answer.” I bat his hands away. “Don’t change the subject.” “I’d forgotten how prickly you get when I say sweet things.” I scowl. “You’re not allowed to say sweet things.”
“I’m drowning in you, Bree. I shouldn’t want to. I should fight it. But I can’t.” My eyes flutter closed, then open. I inhale a ragged breath. Exhale an answer. “So drown.”
“If we weren’t pretending, I would want all of you, Bree Matthews.” His voice rumbles low enough to carry through my body, from the tips of my ears, across my hips, down to my toes. When he shifts against me, I gasp. “I want you whole.” His next kiss is a promise that leaves me trembling. “I want you entire.”
“Because she is worthy.” Nick’s eyes seek mine one final time. “And while I have lost my faith in the world… I never lose faith in her.”
“And if you don’t, then I’ll remind you for as long as I have breath: I will never be careless when it comes to you. I will never be thoughtless about what you deserve. And I will never let Arthur Pendragon keep us from who we are together.”
“Listen to me. You don’t owe them anything, Bree. No one deserves your suffering.”
“Would you forget me?” I murmur, voice drunk with pleasure. “I could lose my entire soul… and still never forget you.”
“If you need to go, I won’t force you to stay.” Another dip into my well of bravery. An impossible question and a wish, cast into his waiting gaze. “And if I wanted you to go with me?” “I’d go.” He tilts my chin to press a lingering kiss to my mouth. “And never look back.” “Never look back?” I breathe. “Never.”
“You and me,” I breathe, smiling. “Yes,” he says, voice rough, “you and me.”
When I finally whisper, “And if I want to burn it all to the ground?” His answer is a quick grin against my lips. “My blade is yours.”
“But someone once told me that while we know ourselves best, we don’t always know what we’re capable of doing or becoming. And I think that’s a pretty nice way to look at it.”
“While we know ourselves best, we don’t always know what we’re capable of doing or becoming”—he pauses, thinking—“and we can always choose new paths if we need to.”
“You had to fail, Bree. You had to fall.” “Why?” I exclaim. “Because you had to rise.” He steps closer. “A true leader has to know every side of her battle: the wins, the losses, the enemies, the allies, the good, and the bad. And she has to know who has her back, without the titles and legacies.”
“She didn’t fail me,” I whisper, voice cracking. “I failed her.…” “None of that,” Hazel murmurs. “The ones we love don’t think in those terms. They give us grace when we fall.…” “So that we can rise,” I whisper.
“Loving other people and losing them hurts. And loving them when they’re gone? Opens up the wound again. Now, I’m no expert, but I think the only way to live with grief is to seek its antidote.
“Epiphyllum oxypetalum.” Hazel’s eyes have gone teary. “More commonly known as queen of the night. These flowers require regular sunlight to flourish and yet they only bloom in darkness, only one night a year. A Wildcrafter like your mother would have known exactly how to care for one of these plants. Sensed its blossom in time to watch it open and wilt before dawn.” She wraps an arm around my shoulder. “These flowers take faith, Bree. Even when we can’t see their progress, even when we forget they’re growing, they bloom. And they are worth the wait.”
“You pushed me to try something today that I never even thought was possible, just because you wouldn’t give up on yourself and you refused to give up on me. Even when you choose yourself, you turn hope into something tangible for the rest of us. Even when you choose not to fight, you turn the tides. If you ask me, that right there is the soul of a king.”
“There will be plenty of time for us to fight later.” Sel’s eyes trail over my face, my cheeks, my brow. “Why fight now, when you are as glorious as I remember? As powerful? More, even. I would rather enjoy simply… perceiving you.”
“You aren’t a failure!” I say. He smiles, harsh and slow. “And how would you know that, gorgeous girl? How could you ever understand what failure looks like? What it means to fall?”
“Maybe you’re right, Briana Matthews, and I am not a problem to be fixed.” His eyes flare, red flame leaking from their corners. “But perhaps I should become one.”
“I have learned that you are nothing without your desires. Any power you have is driven not by what is right, or what is fair, or what your neighbor wishes, but what you want. What your will and intention make manifest.”
I feel him in my heartbeat. Feel him in my hope. Call and response, deeper and richer.
There, in the face of the boy whose eyes see so much, is an open, unfettered ache. While I had longed for Nick, he had yearned for me.
Sel’s crimson gaze drags leisurely between us, both satisfied and ravenous. “But here we stand and here we are. A king, a knight… and a prince.” Sel’s smile spreads slow across his face, like thick blood flowing from a wound. “What… shall… we… do?”
