“It would be my honor to serve you, my queen,” I say evenly with the lowest, most dutiful bow. Her big eyes and even bigger smile are the last things I see before closing my eyes to it all.
This is how it started for Roman. He bowed to his brother and then suffered for centuries after.
I refuse to let that happen.
I’ll bow to her as she wants. But I’ll never serve her blood thirst.
TWENTY-EIGHT
ALL THE QUEEN’S MEN
To my surprise,I’m taken back to my hole-in-the-wall of a cell. I’m not complaining, but would it kill them to add a little potpourri or a valance to spruce this closet up a bit?
Roman pauses, his broad shoulders filling the span of the door frame. My brow lowers in confusion, and it’s then that I realize he isn’t staying.
He’s leaving. I’m becoming their monster to be hidden away in the dark.
“Creatchin is planning something,” Zilo says as he files into the room with a weight on his shoulders that I can visibility see.
He’s tired.
Avain lingers near the wall in the shadows, not coming fully into my quaint little prison as Zilo continues on. “She’s gathering supplies and magic. Dark fucking magic. She wants the High Hell in the war chamber within the hour,”
Shit.
I’ve never been so unhappy to be right.
I nod to him so slowly; it feels like I’m already watching the four of us kill off realms and realms of innocent people.
He too nods, much the same.
The three of them head toward the door near the stairs but Roman slows, not allowing the shadows to fill the space between us.
“I’ll come back for you.” His shadowed face looks this way and that at the small room I stand in. “For the first hundred years, this was my room,” he whispers like a confession.
My heart dips down low. He doesn’t look at me.
But he can’t seem to walk away either.
“I won’t leave you in this fucking room,” he vows.
He turns back to his friends and the three of them share a few unspoken words that pass in the quiet.
“Roman,” I whisper as my hand slides over his along my jawline. He’s so cold to the touch. This prison is literally seeping into him. “You should go,” I say with as much strength as I can find rotting inside myself.
His laughter is a cutting, eerie sound in the dark.
“That’s never gonna fucking happen, beautiful.”
“What? Why?” I utter with so much confusion sinking through me.
“Because,” his eyes blaze into mine with pure honest emotion shining in the depths. “Because I fucking love you, Cersia. I love your wit, and your anger, and your fucking mouth. Goddess that mouth,” he murmurs.
And then he’s kissing me.
The dampness and the cold no longer exist. This prison, the Night Witch, the entire Realm of Hell, they no longer exist when he’s kissing me like I’m the only air he’ll ever need for the rest of his miserable life. His hands slide desperately through my hair but his tongue slows, sliding over mine once more before pressing his lips to mine ever so gently. And then he steps back to look at me.
The pressure in my chest alone could break me. The way he’s looking at me, I could die right now and feel only happiness.
