The Witches' Blade (Five Crowns of Okrith, #2)

by A.K. Mulford

“You are a monster,” she sneered, thinking her words might hurt him, but Renwick’s face only split into an evil grin. “Then we are as wicked as each other, Princess.”

“A common sickness amongst men who were raised to believe they were owed the world.”

Maybe Renwick was too far from happiness to feel it either. Maybe there were too many broken pieces of each of them to ever be put back together. As the dappled sunlight strained behind the heavy clouds, she wondered if, even between the two of them, there might be enough to make one whole.

“And what will make me feel safe?” Rua snarled, moving to push past him. He grabbed the crook of her arm, his face mere inches from hers. “Me.”

“I know what that darkness whispers, and how the lies begin to sound like truth. We wear those lies like armor, thinking they will protect us. Do not expect Renwick to take off his armor without proving you will not cut him down for it.”

The two of them smiled at each other as the rest of the world faded away. Just them and their smiles in a room full of sound.

In that moment, looking at the Northern King, they didn’t feel like royalty to Rua, they felt like two lonely people who had always struggled to hide themselves from the people who were meant to love them.

He looked at her like she was the golden dawn. “I would tear down the sky for you,” he promised, leaving her with one last kiss.

“We keep desperately throwing things into that chasm, knowing it will never fill and we will lose ourselves trying to fill it. Let it rise to meet us instead. We won’t hide these things away anymore, not from each other,” she vowed. “I will lean on you, if you will lean on me.”

She would give herself over to this happiness. The fear of losing it would no longer hold her back. However long it lasted, she would make it count for something. She felt the darkness and the joy. One did not deny the other. She could hold it all.