“Io doesn’t do that anymore,” I told him. I’d never seen her braid her hair before bed.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” he said, finishing the first braid and starting on the second. I had to fight off a sigh. How could something be so soothing and stimulating all at the same time? “I think when Io moved to the temple, she put a lot of things from the past behind her. She wanted to start over, have a different life.”
And now she was back in the palace, forced to be near the woman who had abused her and having her life threatened on a constant basis because of me. I didn’t want her to be in danger. “I’m sorry that she came here for me.”
At that he stopped and stared at our shared reflection. “I’m not. Her being here saved her life. If she had been in that temple ...”
Io would have been killed. Something that had nearly taken out Antiope would have crushed Io first thing.
I saw him swallow hard. “I’m sorry that I accused you of putting Io’s life in danger while you were in the temple together. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have blamed you.”
My lungs couldn’t manage to gather in air. That was something he had said he would never forgive me for, and now here he was apologizing for it. My throat felt too thick and it prevented me from speaking. I nodded.
He went back to braiding and worked in silence. I was too overwhelmed by what he had just said. Should I apologize to him for the things I had wrongly held against him?
I hadn’t been wrong about everything I’d accused him of. Dolion, his own phratry brother, had confirmed that Xander had known who I was the moment he had stepped foot in Locris, something he continued to deny.
What would he do if I asked him to just be honest about it? I wasn’t angry about it any longer because I knew that had our positions been reversed, I would have done the very same thing.
But this was such a nice moment that I didn’t want it ruined. So instead I stayed silent. I handed him the ties when he requested them.
He was combining all three braids when he said, “It’s not like you to be so quiet.”
“I ... have a lot on my mind,” I said.
“We all do.”
The last few days had been nightmarishly horrendous. The atrocities we had seen—they changed everything. Before we had gone to Lycia, I’d planned to tell him that I wanted us to have separate rooms.
Now I didn’t want to be apart from him, even if it was unwise.
“All done,” he said.
“Thank you.” We looked at each other in the mirror and it made the memories of him undressing me in front of my full-length mirror flood into my mind.
I wondered if he was thinking the same thing, if he noticed how my breathing had gone shallow.
“We should go to sleep,” he said, and he started his nightly walk around the room, putting out the lights.
I got up and went to my side of the bed and climbed in. My palms were clammy, my heart was racing. I was nervous and didn’t know why. We had done this so many times already, but tonight felt different for some reason. He put out the last candle and I felt him get into bed beside me.
He lay there for a little while before he turned and said, “Are you going to ...”
Taking that as my invitation, I snuggled in closer to him. He put his arms around me, but his hold felt tentative. Usually he was so sure of himself. We had both let our guards down and were in a new, strange place.
One I had promised his sister we wouldn’t be in.
Even when we’d been angry, we’d always been drawn to each other, two flames burning so bright and hot that we would leave nothing but ashes in our wake. I put my hand on his bare chest, letting the steady beat of his heart comfort and soothe me.
I still felt strange. This was like it had been in the beginning, when he’d first started holding me while we slept. I remembered how we’d have stilted conversations about our days and everything felt awkward until it didn’t.
“I need to learn to ride a horse,” I announced, looking up at him.
He turned his head toward me. “Why? Were you planning on fleeing in the middle of the night?”
I smiled at his teasing tone. “No. But I need to learn how.”
“Io could show you. Maybe you can practice on your way to the temple to train.”
