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I love you. I tell him in the sigh he draws from my lips. In every slow caress across his skin. In every pounding beat of the heart that belongs to him. I love you. He smells of pine and spice and long nights under the willow. I love you. He tastes like a secret I wish to scream, a word on the tip of my tongue that will never be mine to utter. So I say his name instead, as if I could claim him so easily. As if I’m not thinking of three damning words when I say it. I love you.
The queen is dead.
Oh shit
“She is powerless.”
OMG PAE AND KITT ARE SIBLINGS? And... Wait ... Kai a half-sibling? Not cool.
It reminds me of Adena and her boy from Loot.”
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH IS HE RETURNING?
He coughs quickly into a curled fist.
I am always suspcious of coughs
I’m breathless at the sight of her, doomed by the hope of having her. It’s a beautiful ruin, a devastating devotion. This girl holds my heart in her hands, could crush it between her fingers and still have me thanking her for the touch. And I hold her shoes.
“I’m sensing that we may end up in the sea before even spotting land.” He smiles, and suddenly, the frigid water starts to seem like a good idea. “Then I’ll swim for the both of us.”
“I want you to share it with me. Please.” I wave the dough in front of him in that way Adena always used to do. “I don’t know how to eat one of these alone.”
I would do it all again just to hear you threaten my life.” “That seems foolish,” I breathe. “Then it’s fitting.” He runs a thumb over my bottom lip. “Seeing that I am a fool.” I raise my eyebrows at him. “You told me you weren’t anymore.” His lips brush my cheek. I smile when they meet my nose. Gasp when they graze my neck. “That was pretend, darling.”
“Death himself couldn’t drag me from you.”
“What did you think we were going to do? Hide for the rest of our lives beneath the willow tree?” The words are harsh enough to penetrate his mask. He blinks at me, voice low. “Well, that’s where I will be. Hiding from the royal couple.” I shake my head. Tears sting my eyes. “You know why I have to do this.” He laughs, and it’s a biting sound I forgot him capable of. “Of course I know. But don’t you see? That doesn’t matter.” He lifts a hand toward my face before thinking better of it. “I’m selfish, Paedyn. I burned your home to the ground just to have you and now it is all of Ilya standing in
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“Good. Because if I have to choose between you or Kitt…” “I know,” I murmur. Tears threaten to wash away the anger I’m cowering behind. “Do you?” Those gray eyes glide over me in that way I’m certain I’ll never get used to. “Because I sure as hell don’t.”
His words turn into a cough,
Oop?
Kitt’s mother died giving birth to him before the king remarried and had Kai, making the princes half brothers.
Oh right. They aren't brothers at all, and Paedyn and Kitt are 100% family. Ugh.
Edric only nods to the book in his heir’s hand and does not smile back.
Rude.
still within her invisible grip. Because for the first time in my life, I don’t hear weakness in those words. No, I hear a little girl crying over her father’s dead body and surviving despite it. I hear the roar of an Elite crowd, chanting for the Ordinary beneath their noses who crafted her own power. I hear strength where shame once was, fearlessness where I would once cower.
I’ve been up for hours, pacing in the darkness and hoping she will stride in to brighten it. “Where’s your sword? I need to hit something.” A ray of sunshine, this one.
“Bring out the opponent!” My whole body numbs at the king’s words.
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!? Kai!?
When I stare into the face of what it is I love most.
This is not an opponent. This is the boy who braids back my hair and dances for the both of us. The boy who would chase me to the ends of the earth if it meant he could hold me one more time. This is a man who would bury another for me—would bury himself, if only I asked. He is a fool for me. He is my fool. This can’t be happening. Why would Kitt allow this?
And when my gaze crashes into that cool green one, I suddenly cannot remember which king I am looking at.
Fuck him.
The sun is blotted out behind his threatening figure, though its rays comb through that wavy hair like a halo. As though I’m staring at the angel of death.
Another scream pours out of me, this time a desperate plea for him. For the boy I love, not the man ordered to make me his next mission to complete.
“Adena died here. I want to die here too.” Blood trickles from my ears, mingling with the tears racing down my face. “I couldn’t save her then. But I can save you now.”
“That is how I want to die. Just like the ones I’ve loved.” The Enforcer breaks. Tears stream down his face as emotion finally cracks through the thick mask he had shoved on.
And then the blade is buried to its hilt. I scream. It’s the sound of my heart shattering. I can feel the drifting shards in my chest, piercing lungs that can no longer draw breath. I’m choking on disbelief, clawing at the slipping strands of a life I wanted with him.
“But I need you.” A sob racks my body. “You’re all I h-have left. You know I need you!”
My forehead meets his, and I murmur the words I thought would take him away from me. It’s a confession I was too cowardly to voice—and now it will become my biggest regret. But I whisper it now, over and over. “I love you, Kai. I love you. I love you. I love you.” Agony.
Still, the Sights begin to drag him away, leaving a streak of blood behind. “No!” I toss aside the sword, all my fight gone, to reach for his still body. He is being tugged across the sand and all I can do is stumble after him. “No, get away from him!” I trip in the trail of his blood, falling to my knees.
That is what I was in the end. His ruin.
I turn to— Rage surges through me. “You.” I know he hears the accusing word from where he sits comfortably in that glass box. I’m not even sure who I am looking at anymore. All I see are the green eyes of a murderer.
An arm wraps around my torn neck, pressing a damp cloth over my nose. My knees buckle beneath me.
Wtf??? Kitt!? WTF?!?!
“The king has ordered that you stay here until he says otherwise.”
He WHAT?!
Our gazes meet. Smoke meeting fire; life meeting the walking dead.
GAAAAAH
It seems that I haven’t stopped in days, but possibly for the first time in my life, it doesn’t make me feel weak. This is relief that pours from me, a mingling of happiness in his presence and fear at the admittance in my throat.
My feet leave the ground for a moment before landing atop his. I laugh through the tears, propped on his boots just like I had when it was a chain tethering us together, not something far more unbreakable. His arms twine around my waist tightly.
Kai, I—” “I love you.” Kai steals the words from my mouth with a spreading smile. And, distantly, I realize this isn’t the first time he’s uttered such a declaration. He lifts a hand to my tear-stained face, stroking a thumb over the flushed skin there. “Paedyn, I love you. Like nothing else before, I love you. And I’ve been waiting to tell you since I realized your eyes are my favorite color and your freckles the only constellation worth looking at. I could lie—say that you’ve stolen my every thought and heartbeat like the thief you are, but all of me was already yours. Pae, you are my
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“I wanted to test your loyalty to me. See if you would actually…” Paedyn stiffens, and before she can say anything damning, I
Oh he will die
“We found a Wielder that needed to be taken care of.”
Was it Mak? Nonono
“It’s Adena’s boy from Loot.” She chokes on his name. “Mak.”
*breaking*
“See you in the sky.” Eyes wide and rimmed with tears, she lifts her gaze to mine. “He was trying to say that in the arena. He was dying, and that was the last thing he wanted to say.”
“Take care of her for me,” she whispers atop his pale skin. “Take care of her, Mak.”
“You are my forever.” Shadow and Flame. Formidably inevitable. “Forever my undoing.”
Now I’m standing, chest tight. “I can’t watch you marry him, Pae.” “Kai, don’t make this harder than it already is. Please.” She swipes angrily at the tears slicking her face. “You know I have to do this.” I shake my head. “You don’t.”
With one last regretful look, she parts the curtain of leaves and steps into her future. Without me.
hadn’t picked out a piece of jewelry like Kitt asked. “Paedyn, we have to go.” I turn toward Calum and the slight urgency in his voice. With a distant nod, I stride from the room.
Theory: soething in tje box make her understand that they are siblings?
realize, as we halt before the throne room doors, that I never intended to make it to this day.
I kmow the feeling.
I failed him. I failed us. Still, he musters a small smile. It is the look of letting someone go. And it tears me to pieces. He was going to save me.
Now, I get to wear them around my neck like a trophy. Or a pretty noose.
Blood claims blood. And when I look at Iris Moyra, the late and beloved queen of Ilya, I see a shade of her coursing through my veins. And blood never forgets.
Ohhhhhh Goooooooood
