My brows furrow together while my brain tries to play catch-up to everything he is saying.
“It was the moment you called out King Dolian for what he was that I knew—I fuckingknew—that you were going to change everything,” he says, bringing a hand to his chest and rubbing right above his heart.
I replay our first encounter in my mind, the memory surfacing easily. I had snarked that King Dolian liked to make up lies about me and then had panicked at my words, at the frank way I had spoken them in front of a stranger that I thought was bound to serve the king. But Nox had just smiled broadly at me. A smile that was, and still is, beautiful and devastating.
“Visiting you, getting to know you,falling in love with you— It was never about completing my mission. Looking back, I think I knew that very first day that I was drawn toyou, called to you, even if I didn’t understand why. It may have been your magic that beckoned me to that tower, Sunshine, but it wasyou—just as you are, magic aside—that kept me coming back. You took everything that I thought I was and tore it to shreds. You did it with the way you looked at me like I truly mattered. You did it with the brief moments I would get a smile or, gods, a fucking laugh. It’s like time stood still when your bravery peeked out from under the massive rock of grief you were living under.” Nox’s breath stutters, his fingers clenching on his knees as his eyes grow glassy. “I had the answer I was searching for, but I didn’t realize that the question had changed until much later, and I was absolutelyterrifiedby that. Terrified to lose that feeling of being home despite being so far away from the only one I had ever known. Terrified of losing the woman who had ushered in this freedom I was sodesperatefor.”
Tears trail down my cheeks as his words dismantle any argument I might have had against them. They completely obliterate any doubt I had lingering that perhaps I really was nothing more than a means to an end.
His voice is rough, and it draws me in until our faces are only a few inches apart as he speaks. “I need you to understand thatnothingandno oneis more important to me than you. Not my title, not my crown, and not even this kingdom full of people I would have died for four months ago. You can be angry with me. Fuck, I expect you to be. Iwantyou to be angry, but don’t question my love for you because, despite everything else, it is the one thing that has always remained true.”
My eyes close as his hand cups the side of my face, his thumb gently wiping away my tears.
He takes a deep breath, adding, “And it always will.”
Chapter Twenty-Three: Rhea
Coward.
It is the only thing I can think as I stare at the unfamiliar wooden beam ceiling above me. Utter shame is the only emotion flowing through me while I lay on a bed that is neither mine nor Nox’s but his sister’s.
After he confessed his side of everything, explained his deeply-rooted love for me, I had just stared at him, speechless. It is ludicrous to find myself shocked at the way he so easily disclosed his feelings. Nox has always been open with me abouthow he feels, and I know, so deeply within me that it pulls on the edges of my soul, that he is being honest. That lying about who he technically is hurt him—maybe as much as it hurt me. Maybe even more. He is a crown prince, but does that knowledge change who he is tome?
What did a title change, anyway? Though I am princess of the Mortal Kingdom, that moniker has no bearing on what makes me who I truly am. It isn’t even a title I want. Groaning, I turn on my side, frustration mixing with the wave of emotions crashing into me.
I know that Nox loves his kingdom, and despite what he said earlier, I know he would still fight for them, for their protection. It is ingrained in who he is—a protector. I also know that he loves me and that it is the kind of love that I have read about. The kind I thought might not even exist. A kind so pure and real andrawthat, even in my quietest wishes spoken to the night sky, I wouldn’t have been able to ask for something as good as this. As good as him. I could never have allowed myself to dream of someone like him because I didn’t know what it was to be loved like that.
And I am a coward. Because after he confessedeverything, I had just stared at him, words completely dried up. Anger snuffed out like an ocean’s worth of water poured on the flame of a single candle. He gave his heart to me, and I had shored my defenses in response. An intrinsic part of me that is still afraid of getting hurt, the one that screams that I’m a shell of a person not worth anyone’s time or love, had won in that moment.
When it was clear that I couldn’t—wouldn’t—speak, Nox dropped his hold on my face and murmured something about getting some more rest. Then he had led me to Bahira’s room, her door just down the hall from his.
Now here I am, contemplating what I am going to do next.
Coward.
Knowing that sleep is a lost cause for tonight, I push off of the bed and walk over to the glass balcony door. The summer air is warm around me as I step out, fragrant floral and pungent earthiness heavy with every inhale. There is no moonlight visible through the canopy of trees, the forest just barely lit by the small flames in glass orbs surrounding the outside of the palace.
My hand absentmindedly reaches out to scratch Bella’s soft fur—so used to her being at my side—and I’m met with nothing but empty space instead. My next breath is harsh, and I’m unable to stop my quivering lip as I place both hands on the wooden railing in front of me and dig my nails into it.
Coward.
My head dips back down as my gaze goes once more to the trees in front of me. I remember what Selene had suggested—that I should forgive myself, and that seemed easy enough in theory. But forgiveness had to be earned, didn’t it? What had I done to procure that sort of clemency for myself? I had a long list of things I have failed at, another made of matters that I was directly to blame for, and no list of the ways I had atoned for them.
Not like Nox had. He continually risked parts of himself for me because, despite it all, he lovedme.And when he had professed that love over and over again, when he had laid out his reasons for keeping secrets and then subtly begged me to forgive him for them, I had juststared.Silent and dumbfounded. Guilt-ridden and stunned. He deserves my forgiveness; of that, I am sure. And Idowant to give it to him. A quieter voice whispers that I want to give it myself too.
But it can’t be that easy.
Night passes quickly though very little of it is given to sleep. Instead, I sit curled up on Bahira’s bed, hugging my knees to my chest as I let myself get lost in memories that now seem to haunt me. Bella’s absence has never screamed so loudly as it does now, a phantom in the room that sucks the air from it and leaves me huddled in the mess of the aftermath. Eventually, my lids grow too heavy to keep open, my body uncurling enough to lay down and succumb to the fatigue that calls to me.
I’m awakened by a gentle knock and a voice at the door, the sound causing me to jerk upright, growing dizzy as I do. “Lady Rhea, my name is Sarai. I’m the queen’s lady-in-waiting. May I come in?”
Ringing starts in my ears as my heart squeezes in on itself. I don’t know who this person is, if they are truly someone who works for the palace or not.Where is Nox?
I don’t respond, clutching the blankets of a stranger’s bed as my magic stretches within me. The silence grows while I stare at the dark wooden door, a trickling of sunlight dotting it from the windows across the room.
Footsteps sound and another voice accompanies a new round of knocks. “Rhea? Are you in there?” Nox asks, and my body immediately relaxes.
Swallowing down the anguish that has taken root in my throat, I quickly cross the room and open the door. The motion feels so familiar, like all the times that I would rush to answer his knock in the tower. But, standing across the threshold now, the man in front of me has traded in his signature smirk for a defeated downturn of his lips. His dark gray eyes roam over me for only a moment before he turns his head. The column of his throat works as he swallows harshly, a hand gesturing to the woman standing a few feet away at his side.
