And now Gavin had returned too.
“I’m not sure I deserve anything for murdering my half sister, least of all awe,” I finally said. “She tried to have you killed too?”
“Three times. Although I didn’t realize the first two were her until much later.” The memory couldn’t dampen his cheer. “I thought the first two were just courtly pranks gone too far. But it was hard to argue with—well, the person who came for me the third time obviously had their orders directly from Severine.”
“How’d you escape?”
“I got lucky.” He shrugged. “But I didn’t think twice about tucking my tail between my legs and fleeing back home to Aifir, where she didn’t have spies everywhere. I don’t think I ever would’ve been able to look her in the eye and face her.”
“If that’s true, why are you here now?”
“I wanted to shine light into the dark.” The low sun sparked veins of kembric in his eyes and turned his expression serious. “I wanted to meet the only kin I have left in this world, and show her this family was capable of good.”
His earnestness made me want to believe him, badly. I wanted to believe he had both our best interests at heart. I wanted to believe the promises of righteousness spilling like sunlight from his mouth.
A burst of excruciating relief seared my heart.
Scion, I almost wanted to believe he could do what I hadn’t been able to. I wanted to believe he could be the Sun Heir.
We clattered back into the barn. Gavin lifted me down and set me on my feet with a flourish. I was a little out of breath, and I could tell my hair had fallen out of its twisting side braid—dark curls clung to my damp cheeks and kissed the nape of my neck. Gavin grinned, and pushed one of the locks behind my ear, his fingers skimming my cheekbone. I braced myself for a frisson of pain, but of course, it never came. There was just the touch of his skin, sun-warm and smelling of hay and leather. I breathed in that new scent, tasting its complexities, and when I looked up, I found Gavin’s startling eyes lingering on my face.
“There,” he said softly. “Didn’t I keep you safe?”
His hot hands curled around my neck, his fingertips brushing the soft hairs at my nape. His eyes searched my face, more intent than I’d ever seen him, and I shivered. In the dim of the stables, Gavin seemed to radiate an almost-imperceptible glow—the moment just after a candle is blown out, or a memory of sunlight. He looked handsome, with his mahogany hair mussed and his jacket awry and his eyes dark with interest, and I realized with a flash that I was attracted to him.
He tilted his face toward mine, and kissed me.
“Gavin!” I gasped out, alarm unfurling beating wings within me. I pushed against his chest, struggling out of his embrace. For a bare second, he gripped me too tightly. And then he let me go.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Aren’t you attracted to me?”
My skin tingled with discomfort. Was I? Scion, for a moment I’d felt like—I shuddered. Disgust thundered through me, but I didn’t know whether it was aimed at him or myself.
“I think,” I said, carefully, “that my attraction is spoken for.”
Gavin’s expression shuttered. “Sunder?”
I nodded.
He sighed, and swung up onto his horse. “Then, my lady, I will bid you a very warm goodbye.”
Back in Belsyre Wing, I found Sunder in my room. He stood when I slung open the door. His frost-pine eyes rattled my heart in its dusk-bound cage.
“Here to berate me once again?”
“Actually, I came to apologize.” His eyes narrowed on my torn gown. The blade of his mouth was whetted on loathing. “Who did that? D’Ars?”
I flushed. “It’s not what you think.”
“If he so much as touched you—”
“Do you not trust my word?”
Sunder trawled a hand through his bright hair and looked away.
I slid behind the dressing screen, desperate to shuck off the offending gown. I couldn’t remember now why I’d found the incident so funny. Gavin had ripped half my gown without asking, for Scion’s sake. It had been disrespectful, if not downright predatory. And yet I’dlaughed—laughed like it didn’t matter, laughed like he had a right to my clothes, my body.
Laughed like he had a right to my throne, my city, myempire. And why not? Scion knew neither of us had earned it, but at least he looked the part.
