Running a comb through my hair, my fingers tighten around its handle at the thought of our impending conversation. Confessions sit heavily on my chest, an excruciating weight that threatens each exaggerated breath I take. I know that I love him, that a life without him isn’t something I want. But the disquiet whispers that plague my mind and infiltrate my thoughts are hard things to get rid of.
He has an entire other life here, one that I wasn’t told of. One that I’m terrified will hold other secrets that may be just as hard to push past as learning the truth about his involvement with Alexi.
I pull my damp hair over my shoulder and quickly brush my teeth with the spare toothbrush that Nox had said his mother’s lady-in-waiting, Sarai, brought. Finally feeling somewhat put together again, I turn and reach for the door handle, my hand hesitating in the air for a few seconds before I force myself to grab and turn it. Steam billows out of the bathroom and into Nox’s room from behind me. Humidity sits thick in the air, a byproduct of both my shower and the summer air seeping in from the open window.
“How are you feeling?” he asks from where he sits on the bed, his back against the dark wooden headboard. His gray eyes aresharp on me, their awareness causing goosebumps to break out over my skin.
“Better, thank you.”
“I had them bring up some food and more water for you.” Standing, he gestures to the small table out in the sitting room.
Nodding, I follow him out and sit in front of a platter of fresh fruit—most of which I’ve never seen before—and some bread. Going for the latter, I then pour myself some water and begin to eat quietly, trying to ignore the sudden awkwardness as Nox sits on one of the couches. I take in the space, the dark colors slowly tugging on memories of when I first arrived. My eyes roam from the wooden beams above to the plush rugs below and then to the corner of the room, where a black and decayed plant sits.Odd.I look back to Nox, our gazes clashing before he gives me a barely there smile and then forces his eyes closed, tilting his head back against the couch.
My stomach drops at the movement. “Are you alright?”
His eyes open, and even in the dim light, I notice the dark circles that bruise his skin as if he’s been up for days. That guilt rears its head again when I realize that he probably has.
“Better,” he says, mimicking my earlier answer though his version sounds less truthful.
Sighing, I push up from the table and walk over to him, ignoring the way his eyes deepen in color the longer he looks at me. I also ignore the way my stomach clenches under his attention. “Let’s make a vow,” I say, sitting on the couch next to him.
Nox runs a hand through his already-mussed hair and then nods tentatively. It’s unsettling to see him so uneasy, to observe his powerful body made rigid with anxious tension and know that, at least in some part, I am the reason why.
“From here on out, there is only honesty between us. No matter how hard, how difficult orfantasticalthat honesty may seem”—he quirks a brow at that—“we only tell the truth.”
His head nods in agreement, sending a few strands of raven waves over his forehead again. My fingers twist into the silk of my top, nerves growing the longer we look at each other.
“Are you truly alright?” I ask again.
Nox blows a breath out, his tired expression betraying his words from earlier. “Not really.” Then his gaze drops from mine, but not before utter defeat crosses his features.
I yearn to reach a hand out to him, to cup his face and tell him that it’s going to be okay, but I don’t know if that is exactly true. We are two people afloat in the same sea made up of love and sacrifices and secrets kept, and it feels like we are drifting farther apart.
“Rhea, nothing has ever torn me apart more than keeping these secrets from you, specifically the one about Alexi,” he says softly, an admission that I can tell comes from a ragged place within him. “I meant what I said earlier that my plan was to tell you absolutely everything. I just thought it would be better to say it all once we got here. Once we were away from King Dolian and you could see with your own eyes the place and people I was trying to keep safe.”
I chew on my lower lip, fear of this unknown space between us working hard to keep my questions locked inside of me. But I had promised honesty, and I meant it. So I break open a box filled with the things I need to know from him.
“How could you look me in the eye and say everything you said, all your professed truths and declarations of love, and still be holding so much of yourself from me? You knew what he meant to me. Youknewhow I had grown up. How naive I was. How sheltered.” What started out as a simple question turnsinto an inferno of accusations within me, sparked by the anger I hadn’t realized was still simmering so brightly.
“Everything I said was the gods’ honest truth, Rhea—”
“But we aren’t really talking about everything yousaid,are we?” My voice is hardly above a whisper, but it strikes Nox like an arrow hitting its target. My magic rises within me, and while it’s mostly a warm feeling, there’s also a hint of bitter cold.
“No, I suppose we aren’t.”
The expanse of that invisible ocean between us grows. Perhaps it was foolish to think we could overcome this. Maybe I held too much hope in what Selene had said in the Middle. Could loving someone be enough to bridge a gap that now seemed impossible to close?
“Do you know that I have neveroncebeen told the entire truth by anyone in my life? Can youpossiblyimagine what it feels like to finally think you’ve found someone who truly sees you, who says theyloveyouas you are, and find out that it was alie?”
“It wasn’t a lie,” he argues in response, his body leaning towards mine. “Four years ago, I left my title, my friends and family, myhome, to find what we perceived to be a threat coming from the Mortal Kingdom. I know it doesn’t hold a candle to the lifetime of shit you’ve been through, but for me, those four years felt like trying to walk with heavy chains shackled to my ankles and the weight of my kingdom across my back.Yes, I had to pretend. I had to do it every single day, except for the few rare visits I got to make back home, but even then, by the time I finally could relax enough to be myself, I was packing up to leave again.” Nox takes a deep breath, his eyes tracing the outline of my face. “I lived in that kingdom, serving King Dolian, with only one thing on my mind: keeping the people that I loved safe. I was willing to sacrifice anyone who stood in my way. I was willing to sacrificemyselfto ensure it. No matter the cost,Iwantedto pay it because here, in this place?” He pauses to gesture out with his arms. “It’s whereevery single thingthat held any sort of value to me was waiting. Waiting for me to find out if they would stay safe or if they had to prepare for an attack I wasn’t sure they could defend against.And then I met you.”
The last sentence is practically said through gritted teeth, as if that painful realizationbrokesomething in him. At this moment, it nearly breaks me.
“I remember going up the stairs of that tower for the first time with a damn smile on my face because I was sosure—without a shadow of a doubt—that I was going to find what I was sent there for.Finally, after four fucking years, I was close enough to get the answer I desperately needed. One thatmy kingdomneeded. But then my eyes met yours. You were standing in your loft, looking like a damn goddess of light. You cut through the darkness that surrounded me so easily, so effortlessly. Staring into your eyes, I felt like I could breathe again in a place that was slowly suffocating me.”
My eyes widen, my own breaths turning choppy at his admission.
“I knew the moment you came down the stairs from your loft that you were the magic I felt. It was pulsating around you, around the tower, so strongly that I nearly fell to my knees in your presence. It was then that I realized King Dolian hadliedabout you. You weren’t some grief-stricken recluse obscuring herself from the outside world. You were beautiful and glowing andmagnificentin every sense, and that asshole washidingyou,” he growls. “He hid you and did gods knows what else to you because, even if he didn’t know you had magic, he sure as fuck knew you were special. I could tell you that I decided to get to know you purely because I needed to figure out how you had magic or if you were a threat, but that would be a lie. I couldsay that my feelings for you slowly morphed over time, when our visits became more frequent, but that would also be a lie.”
