I had so much to fight for. So many hopes placed on my shoulders. This was why it was easier to stay hidden, so that if I failed, I wouldn’t crush everyone else’s hope as well.
Restless and irritable, I stole away to the one place I might find peace—Kiera’s bedroom.
Chapter 34
Aiden
Kiera had disappearedinto a cozy yellow room before I’d found a bed in the same room as Maz.
I stalked through the manor, staying away from the windows, as Caddik instructed. He’d gone out with his workers to take care of the horses, cows, chickens, and whatever other animals roamed his land.
The sun was setting, and I seemed to be the only one awake in the house. I carefully opened the bedroom door and shut it behind me without a sound.
The fluffy curtains were drawn. Kiera was nothing but a lump under a pile of embroidered blankets in the four-poster bed.
Smiling, I eased onto the bed next to her. The wooden frame creaked under my weight.
She cried out and flipped over, aiming a knife straight for my chest.
I caught her wrist. “It’s me, Kiera! You’re safe. It’s just me.”
Her eyes focused on mine, and her arm went limp. I guided her knife hand to lie between us.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. She rubbed her eyes. A pillow crease dented her cheek just below her new scar. Rage flickered in myveins at the thought of Renwell leaning over her to cut into her skin.
“Although,” she continued in the same husky voice that made me forget all about my rage, “if you’re here to drag me out of the first bed I’ve slept in since Yargoth, perhaps I should’ve stabbed you.”
I grinned. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Then why are you here?”
I leaned back on the pillow to stare at the ceiling. Swathes of yellow silk draped over the exposed beams.
“I couldn’t sleep anymore,” I admitted. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I simply wanted the company.”
“Maz isn’t good company when he’s snoring?” she teased.
“Not unless I’m tossing him into an icy river.”
She chuckled.
For one bright, ludicrous moment, I imagined it was sunrise instead of sunset. That Kiera and I had just woken up together in our bedroom after a heated night in each other’s arms. Teasing, laughing, content to stay in our warm seclusion.
That life blinked out in my mind. Replaced by Korvin and Renwell hunting us, an army devouring us, a mine collapsing on us, and ships destroying us.
I meant what I said to Helene, that I would keep fighting for a better Rellmira until my last breath.
But there were also moments like this where I wished for a quiet life. One of love and laughter.
It wasn’t meant to be. I wasn’t even sure that was the life Kiera wanted. Even if Kiera was the only one I’d ever envisioned that life with.
“We’ll find a way,” she whispered.
I turned my head to find her watching me. My heart leaped, then sank when she added, “We’ll destroy the mine and free the prisoners. It’s what my mother would have wanted.”
“Yes, we will,” I promised.
Her eyes flicked to my mouth. I remembered our tentative kiss in the bathroom. Triumph had exploded in my chest when she’d closed the distance between us.
