“They were her favorite flower,” he explained.
His mother’s, he meant. I had pieced together from his memories that he had seen her die at the Frostgrave Battle, but it had never occurred to me to ask what happened to her body afterward.
“It’s beautiful,” I told him honestly.
He took a sharp breath in. “Maybe, but that wasn’t why she loved them. She said they were the only flowers that could protect themselves.”
“The way that she protected you,” I offered.
Draven blinked once, shifting imperceptibly. “When she could.”
I thought of the memories I had glimpsed at Nevara’s bedside, the male who had looked like Draven but for the cruelty that emanated from every core of his being. Draven was ruthless, but he wasn’t cruel, not like that.
I had assumed his mother’s kindness had kept him from becoming that way, but I was beginning to suspect it was more than that. Nevara was protective of him, too, in the way you aren’t with someone who has never needed to be kept safe.
Maybe Draven sensed my brain working overtime to put those things together because he let out a bitter huff of air.
“My father didn’t believe in things that were ornamental.” His voice was tinged with bitterness, the way it always waswhen he spoke of the late king. “He called her flowers useless, so she expanded the gardens a little more every year. A silent rebellion.”
I had wondered more than once why he bothered to maintain the single spot of life in his frozen tundra of a palace.
What had it taken to maintain a rebellion, even a small, silent one, against the king of all of Winter? I thought of my stubborn refusal to sleep in my bed when I first arrived, a faint smile coming to my lips at the idea that I had something in common with Draven’s mother.
Of course, the difference was that my husband was only ever a monster to the rest of the world. Never to me.
“She sounds like someone I would have liked,” I murmured quietly.
He took another sharp breath, and I wondered if I had gone too far, but then he nodded.
“She would have liked you, too.” The words were forced, but no less sincere for it.
I tilted my head. The ring didn’t vibrate, so I knew he was telling the truth, but it seemed unlikely, all things considered. Would she really have liked the Unseelie bride who had kept Winter on the brink of ruin?
“Even knowing… what I am?” I pressed, unable to help myself.
He nodded again, more thoughtfully this time. “She cared more about my happiness than… anything else, really.”
That, too, was tinged with something bittersweet.
“And are you? Happy?” The words came out smaller than I intended, and unlike before, I did immediately want to take them back. “Never mind. Don’t answer that. It was a stupid thing to ask.”
Mostly because I knew the answer. However he felt about me, he wasn’t going to be happy that he was stuck with someonewhose very existence destabilized the kingdom he was trying to protect, who put themselves in danger at every turn.
On top of that, his best friend was on the verge of death, and monsters were ravaging his kingdom, and his wife’s own family was setting the stage for another war.
Draven turned his head to look at me. His hand came to rest on my cheek, his thumb tracing the lines of my cheekbones.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve remembered what happiness is, Morta Mea.”
I tried not to let his response pierce through the armor of my practicality. Hadn’t I just thought the same thing? It shouldn’t have hurt, not like it did.
“But,” he said, dragging his thumb along the line of my lips, “then the Shard Mother gave me you, and I finally remembered what it was to hope for something better. So yes, I’m as happy as I can be under the circumstances… because of you.”
He curled his free hand around mine, tracing my ring like he wanted to remind me that it wasn’t vibrating. He was telling the truth.
“And,” he went on, “I might even be able to stay that way if you could stop trying to get yourself killed for at least a few days.”
“I’m afraid that one day is the maximum amount of time I can commit to,” I murmured, mostly to avoid acknowledging the stabbing of tears at the backs of my eyes.
