“I … really need you to open that one.”
I unravel the bow, finding a beautiful crystal and diamond bracelet cuff inside. It’s gorgeous, like pooled starlight, and I’venever seen anything with such shine and beauty. I go to slip it on, but his hand stops me.
“This one’s a question. A promise but a choice. A real one.” His gaze travels from it to me, eyes shifting to a purple I’ve never seen before. The kind that heralds the early night sky and kisses goodbye the sun. He takes a shaky breath, and I notice his hands are trembling.
Draven clears his throat forcefully. “The one hundred days we’ve shared has convinced me that I could spend a hundred years at your side and still not have enough of you. You are everything I’ve always desired and never have let myself dare for. Beautiful, smart, full of conviction.” He inches his sleeve up, and I see a cuff wrapped around his left wrist, more masculine than mine, but sealed with the same crystal. “I know mortals exchange rings … but I want a life with you here, on the thrones we’re owed. This world is better with you in it. It deserves a leader like you, someone fiercely passionate. It’s why the World chose you, why the Fates chose you. If you take me, I swear I’ll spend a thousand years being worthy of you. Your trust. Your love.” He reaches out, his hand cupping my cheek, fingers braced in my hair. “I wanted to hate you, but you’ve ruined any chance of that. I don’t just want a partner bound to me, equal to me. I want one who loves me like I love you, Rune.”
I can’t breathe. All I know is what he’s said is earth-shattering and true.
“How?” My eyes dart, thoughts bundled in the messy roads that lead to this moment. “Can we really move past everything?”
“Our pasts don’t define our future. We’re both a bit too sharply edged for things to have been absolutely perfect.” He leans in close, waiting as I hold on to that bracelet wrapped in promises. “But I prefer thorns and steel to roses and gold.”
“So do I, Princeling.” My hopeless heart stutters to life, burning away the fears, the doubts, the instinct to stay alone, to stay safe, reigniting my soul. “And whether I spend my life hating to love you, or loving to hate you, I would never choose another. They couldn’t even come close.”
“Stay with me. Let’s rule this wicked world together. Let’s better it.” He leans his forehead against mine. “I don’t care if we’re fated for each other or not, we will write our destiny together. I love you, Rune.”
“I love you, Draven.” I thought saying those words aloud would be the hardest thing I’ve ever said, but they flow easily, like a melody, strung in syllables my heart has hummed for some time. “I think I have for a while.”
“Until fate has her say, and time washes away the name on my grave … you are mine.” He kisses me hard, claiming me with his mouth, and I pull him into me by his shirt. Let us be damned by our ambition, our vengeance, even our love.
We will rise or fall together.
Suddenly he bites my lip and I pull back as he hunches, groaning.
“Draven?” I ask, panic tinging my voice. “Draven, what’s wrong?”
He pulls out a dagger lodged between his ribs, dripping fresh blood. Draven’s eyes flutter as he looks to the red spreading across his shirt, speechless, face turning white. Rage rocks me as I watch that blade lift to his throat next, my eyes bulging, body edged as I jump, an assassin standing there.
Kasper.
32Knight of Swords
The Knight of Swords represents lightning-fast changes and conflict, and his words are both cutting and blunt. In the reverse, he is ruthlessly single-minded, hasty, and obsessed with his own cruel form of justice.
DRAVEN’S BLOOD STAINSKasper’s wrist and sleeve. My hand strikes to my side, summoning the World in an instant, but the knife inches closer to Draven’s throat, drawing a bead of crimson.
He warns me, “Don’t eventhinkabout it.”
I stop. Draven spits through his teeth, “Well, there’s stupid, and then there’s whatever the fuck you’re doing, Kasper.”
“You’re one to talk. You didn’t even feel me take your cards until I’d already stabbed you.” Kasper’s spare hand holds the deck.
Draven’s lip curls, fangs bared, the claw at the top of his wing angling as if he’s about to try to rip out Kasper’s eye.
Kasper turns his attention to me. “Now, don’t think you can draw before I can cut. Not even the Hanged Man would save him if you so much as flinch. Drop the deck.”
“End him, Rune,” Draven orders, but I hesitate.
I’ve gotten faster, better, but even so, it still takes a couple of seconds to draw another card. Kasper would spill his blood all over this bedspread before then.
Damn him.
Furious, I drop the World card, removing my entire deck, and I toss it into the center of the bed where it bounces, landing on the floor and scattering.
Despair crosses Draven’s eyes.
“She’s smarter than you,” Kasper hisses to Draven.
