I immediately push into my gut, sending my want and need to Keane.
“Your King will come,” Hirovale looks at me with acknowledgement, “but not until we continue our own words first.”
“And will you repeat them to him?” I ask, holding the Ancient’s gaze as I feel Keane’s summoning grip my chest in return, his curiousness hard and angry.
“Do you want me to?” Hirovale asks.
He lifts his brows in genuine question and takes another small step forward. Keane releases me suddenly as I turn to the clouded park around us, searching for him through the thick air.
“Do you want your King to know, Alex?” Hirovale repeats with a coolness in his voice, prompting me to turn back to him, “do you want him to hear my words as well?”
“Why do you ask?” I look at him through narrowed eyes, noticing that his features have turned serious.
Hiro holds my gaze steadily, willing me to listen to him as he says his next statement slowly.
“Because your answer will set you and I along one of two paths, Alex…”
My heart stops in my chest.
“The first,” he gives me a brief nod, body inches from mine, “is a path in which you and your King, and me and my Human Reborn, work sideby side in the years to come, our coupling independent of the other. Our actions will be separate, away from each other, though we will still work towards the same goal.
I frown as the Ancient continues, “if you choose this path, your King will not hear my words.”
A shiver runs down my spine.
“The second,” Hirovale continues, still holding me with his serious gaze, “is a path in which the three of us work as one. We will share this life together with our actions and the roles we have moving forward, and he will hear me tell him what Elena has told you, and more…”
My heart starts pounding again, my full body on the verge of shaking. I’m no longer kept still by Hirovale’s summoning but instead by his words, by his powerful presence and by the choice he lays out before me.
But I know what I want. From the moment the words left his lips.
The choice is an easy one, has always been an easy one, as I’ve come to appreciate Keane by my side with the Ancient. I know I want the three of us to work together, now and in the future.
I want Keane to know, my heart cries out to Hirovale as he continues to hold my gaze,I want it to be all three of us.
The Ancient’s lips turn up in the smallest of smiles.
“He’s always beenyourchampion, Hiro,” I add softly, “he’s the reason I give you such benefit of the doubt.”
“I know it, Alex,” the Ancient smiles back at me in small affection, “and I’m glad of your choice.”
Hirovale flicks his hand casually at his side, tilting his gaze behind mine as Keane’s footsteps fall against the cobblestone. The Prince moves swiftly to stand at my side, his shoulder brushing against mine as he turns to me and then back to the Ancient, assessing the situation before him.
I exhale in relief at Keane’s presence and let the Ancient catch my gaze again, neither of us taking our eyes off the other.
“Your parents called you Alex,” he smiles at me fondly, as if looking at the memory by looking at me, “the same visions Sianoa graced Elena with were also sent to me in my sleep…”
My body goes still again.
“But my sister also gave me more. More visions of my Human Reborn. Of the girl and the woman she was growing to be.”
Hirovale holds my gaze hard and unrelentingly, not allowing me to look away as he nods, “youdidlight everyone around you with a smile when you were younger. You still do. You had a fire within you that greeted everything with an open mind and an open heart, though that fire was extinguished to a near ember when they brought you to Bardot.”
“That night in Etter… you hid as your mother bid. She pleaded for you to stay quiet no matter what you saw, no matter what you heard happening. You watched from below as the two Discerni men laughed and slew her so casually in front of you, and I watched as the happy smile that always graced your face slowly diminished, replaced with something else. You wanted to fight, Alex. A mere girl of fourteen ready to go to war against the magical beings that slaughtered her family…”
Keane reaches swiftly for my hand at my side, grasping it tightly in his hold.
“You didn’t trust Elena when she came for you. She looked too similar to the men who laughed and walked away from your dying mother without a second glance. You fought hard when she reached for you, brandishing a kitchen knife as if the metal could transform into a sword. I watched your fire spark then, knowing that my human,my champion,was being reborn. It’s true when she told you that she had to force you down, force you to drink her sleeping remedy. But you fought hard against that magic,” Hirovale shakes his head in wonder, “a mere girl of fourteen with such tenacity and pure, raw emotion. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe as I watched in awe as your body, your whole being, fought against the sleep that would have claimed any other human. You nearly escaped from her, only to be stopped by the sight of your father.”
