Taiyo’s hand cradled her cheek, skin stained black. Then he kissed her. Hellebore leaned in and returned it, making sure not to aggravate his injury as she wrapped her arm around his other side.
When he pulled back, his lips brushing her cheek as they moved. “I love you. I’m sorry.”
Hellebore squeezed her eyes shut as his hands brushed up and down her sides. She pulled her head back just enough to look him in the eyes without leaving his loose embrace. “Why did you lie? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me believe my brother thought I was a failure?”
Taiyo closed his eyes and bowed his head. “You know now… I came to your father’s court for one purpose, to save my people by taking an alchemist and marrying her so my kingdom’s fate would be hers. If I had to pretend like I was going to go to war with Chymes if I didn’t get my way, I would. Your father, of course, feared the day I would return after the disastrous end to my engagement to Palladia, so he was quick to agree to myremedy. I didn’t pay any attention to whether your brother’s silence was real approval or fear. I cannot impress upon you just how desperate I was. And how desperate I was not to let any of them know it.”
“If I had refused to help you when you showed me the garden, what would you have done?”
“Presuming all my attempts at reason failed? My worstscase scenario was to lock you in a lab and treat you like a prisoner until you started helping. I didn’t want it to come to that, but given I had no idea if I’d be receiving another Palladia as my bride, I had to be prepared for anything. Even if at that point all you did was pretend to work, I had to take the chance I would get a wife who would actually save the irises. I came for you when I had nothing left to lose.”
“Keeping Callahan in a cell and then throwing him out of the city?”
Taiyo nodded, fingers curling into the silk. “The last thing I expected to see the morning of our wedding was him. He didn’t say it, but of course I suspected he was there, sent by your aunt to take you before I married you. He claimed he only wanted to attend the wedding, but I couldn’t take the risk he had something else in mind. Then I showed you the garden and you agreed so quickly to help me… but only because you believed your brother had abandoned you to me. That he thought you weren’t a worthy alchemist. Then he started writing. I was terrified your willingness to help, especially when you claimed you would save me too, would vanish if you discovered your brother had not cast you aside. I hadn’t hoped—I’d been justifying every awful thing I did, knowing I would pay with my life, but then you were promising to save it. I didn’t want to die, and he’d stopped sending the letters by then. So I hid them, even though I hated myself for it. I could see how much it hurt you, and I did it anyway. I can give you all my justifications, but thatdoesn’t change what I did. It doesn’t change the fact that I hurt you for my own gain.”
Hellebore’s voice cracked. “You still never told me.”
“I was a coward. I was falling in love with you, and I searched desperately every day for just a hint of affection, and it was never there. How could I bring myself to tell you and seal my fate in your eyes? I promised myself I would tell you if I lived. That I would tell you everything. If I was going to die anyway, I wanted to at least die with the hope maybe in the minutes or hours before you would stop hiding your heart from me.”
Hellebore surged forward and kissed him, cupping his jaw in her hands. It wasn’t more than a breath, as she pulled back and whispered, “I am furious with you.”
“You should be.”
“But I told you not to tell me, so I can’t blame you for it all.”
“I still should have confessed.”
“I won’t waste this time arguing over it a moment longer.” Hellebore let go, pulling out of his arms. She grabbed the horse’s reins and led it over to Taiyo. “Daylight is when you are strongest, so we need to keep moving and get back to Auror before the eclipse.”
Taiyo sighed, bracing one arm against the tree trunk as he stumbled to his feet. “There’s no point, sunshine. There aren’t enough irises.”
Hellebore shook her head, ignoring the way her eyes welled up at the reminder. “There could still besomething,so get on the horse. Don’t make me repeat myself.”
Taiyo complied, and Hellebore vaulted up behind him again, but this time he was at least able to handle the reins, so she could slip her arms loosely around his waist.
“I know you’re clever, so you probably already figured it all out, but since I’m not hiding anything anymore, I should tell you the whole story about what happened twenty-five years ago.”
He was right. Hellebore had put together most of it, but she was happy to press her cheek to his back and feel the low rumble of his voice as he filled in the missing details.
King Silas was looking for a way to avoid making Palladia his King’s Alchemist, given how notoriously difficult she was and how they never agreed on anything. Then Taiyo arrived, young by elf standards, but Chymes didn’t really understand that, or Hellebore’s father hadn’t cared. Still, he was far too idealistic and naïve, so when Silas had proposed the idea of a marriage alliance, Taiyo had been convinced it was the best way to foster good relations and carry them on into future generations, finally putting to rest the lingering animosity from centuries before.
He'd had no idea Palladia hadn’t been as enamored with the idea as he was. Especially since Silas had kept Palladia away from him, claiming it was Chymesian tradition for brides not to interact with their grooms during the engagement period.
“I feel particularly embarrassed I fell for that,” Taiyo added.
Taiyo continued, telling her that when they arrived in Auror, Palladia played her part, not affectionate, but not acting as though the arrangement was against her will. She just wanted to be certain she’d be able to continue practicing alchemy, given at the time, it was still outlawed completely. He assured her, but she put on a convincing act—how could she trust him? That was when he showed her the garden of irises, telling her how he would give her one after their wedding, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted more. Desperate to keep this engagement and the alliance from failing, as a young king who had yet to prove himself to his court, he was willing to do anything Palladia wanted. Even give her his blood if it meant she would marry him.
He’d never suspected she would use it against him.
When she attacked, she used the blood as a hostage against him, and Taiyo, having no idea of the real limits of alchemy, only the terrible stories he’d grown up with, was willing to giveanything to get it back. When he broke the engagement, giving her all the official documentation that she needed to clear her and ensure her brother couldn’t use any of it against her, she returned the blood, or so he thought. Taiyo didn’t know it at the time, but before she left, she used some of the blood to cause the rot that would slowly eat away at his irises and his kingdom for the next twenty-five years.
That was why he’d tried to cleanse the rot with his blood. His had been used to cause it in the first place.
Hellebore and Taiyo were forced to stop and rest when the sun went down and Taiyo began wheezing with every breath.
They had no food or supplies, so Hellebore transmuted his jacket into a ratty blanket and covered him with it as his eyes fluttered shut. His head was pillowed on her thigh while she leaned against a tree trunk, keeping one eye open and on watch.
She was grateful she had, when halfway through the night the sound of a branch breaking ripped her out of her light doze. Unfortunately, she still had no weapon. She put her hand on Taiyo’s shoulder, ready to leap to her feet to protect him if needed when a figure stepped out of the shadows and into the moonlight.
