“Aydra, do you trust me?”
The stern of his brows made her shift. She avoided his gaze as she pondered the question. He’d risked the love of his people to help her more than once. He’d not done anything to make her think he wanted her kingdom. The way he’d stared at the Infi creatures with sadness and fear in his eyes, with the betrayals of his predecessors on his mind, filled her thoughts. And then she remembered how he would look upon her face, smiling that smile that made her heart melt and her mind cease of worry. The way he would look at her… it was something she knew could not be faked.
“I do,” she said upon meeting his sage orbs.
A great sigh left him as she closed the space between them, and he closed his eyes upon laying his forehead against hers. She pressed her hands to his cheeks and kissed his forehead before taking his hands in hers once more, and then she led him to her room.
There was no late night of lust on this one, no smoldering jokes or teasing arguments. Draven stripped himself of the bloodied clothes, and he got into the bed without saying a word. At first, she wasn’t sure what to do, how to act. But she sat up in the bed against the headboard, and he laid down atop the sheet with his back to her.
She watched his body rise and fall, obvious he was still awake as he lay there in silence. And when he finally readjusted himself, turning over to face her, she reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze. His eyes avoided hers, but he moved, and her entire body shattered when he wrapped his arms around her and laid his head against her stomach. She could feel the rapid beat of his heart, the tenseness in his body.
Her core wept for him.
So she hummed the Wyverdraki song, absentmindedly allowing her fingers to graze over his back, tracing the jagged extensions of his phoenix marking on his shoulder blade and bicep, her other hand laying over his forearm.
“Will you run?” he whispered after a while.
She swallowed hard, feeling his arms tighten around her. “I won’t,” she promised.
He exhaled heavily, and for a moment she thought he might not speak. But he sat up in front of her, and her core shattered at the sight of his struggling figure sitting before her..
“Do you know how it feels to have people look at you as the Dreamers did tonight?” he asked in a rasp, meeting her eyes. “To be condemned for the mistakes of your giver, of previous kings who spread nothing more than ill-witted violence and terror into other parts of our world? To know no matter how much of a different life I may want for my people, that they will never be looked upon by others as anything more than traitors and thieves?”
He paused, and she swallowed hard at the look in his eyes. His jaw was taut, frustration spread over his features. She could see the battle beneath the facade he so desperately clung to, the fight of whether he should go with previous kings or start a new journey for his people.
“I don’t,” she whispered.
He fumbled with his hands a moment, muscles straining to keep his core at bay, and she felt the wind encircle the room.
“When Parkyr died… I wasn’t crowned immediately. There was pressure from the older generation to change tradition and choose a new king, one of Venari instead of Infinari. They thought me unworthy of the phoenix crown because I was young. I was challenged for my leadership, forced to execute one of my own in combat beneath our giver’s tree. Even after I’d won the title, they didn’t respect me, but those of my own age defended me. During the first Dead Moons of my reign, I took Dunthorne and Bael out with me to Duarb. Parkyr had only ever allowed me to go with him to the birthings once. Said he would take me when I turned eighteen. But he died when I was sixteen, and I didn’t know what I was going to find. What we saw… those blistered red-skinned creatures that barely resembled infants. Yellow eyes and wailing screams. I decided right then, I would allow none to live, that if an Infinari child was born and then marked of the Infi fate instead of Venari, that I would take its life, no matter how hard it might be. A few years later, we received news of the Promised crown being passed to the next. That you were crowned.” He paused and met her gaze a moment, and she could see the bite back of words on his tongue. “There was immediate pressure from the olders. They wanted to continue with Parkyr’s plan. They wanted… they wanted me to seduce you, to find the Infi hide in the mountains and ask them to invade your walls when your guard was down.” He swallowed hard, and her insides began to freeze again.
“Aydra, I swear—”
“Was it orchestrated?” she asked softly. “My falling in your forest?”
“No,” he said as his eyes met hers.
“Draven—”
“I swear on my life,” he affirmed.
The wind whipped around the room with his stare, and then he sighed heavily, shaking his head. “I always told myself I could be better than the greed of my predecessors, that I could lead our family into prosperity and belonging without the need of war and invasion. That we could reverse the curses of our past, no longer be the people the Chronicles said we were.”
“How did you convince the olders to not invade with the Infi?”
“I didn’t,” he admitted. His hand ran through his hair, and he sighed again. “Parkyr’s followers left us the night you fell in my forest.”
The room stilled.
She blinked, unsure of what he’d just said.
“What?”
His fingers tugged at the roots of his hair. “There is a faction of Venari, the older generation and followers of the old ways… They didn’t like my unwillingness to go along with the plans to seduce you and unleash the Infi. When you fell… they urged me to go through with it or kill you. When I refused, they left. I’m not sure where they’ve been.”
The news made Aydra’s heart pause. She stared at the blanket, the moons light reflecting into her room and casting shadows on his grieving face. Her core hurt. She was unsure what to feel, what to believe.
“Aydra, you have to understand…” he started again, “the pressures of what my people wanted, of the ridicule and slander bestowed upon us simply because of what we are… It’s hard not to go through with such a plan when you have been condemned for it before it even happens.”
