“I will not.”
“You will break the deal you made with your father?” His mother’s voice cut through him, and Nikias reflexively flinched even though her hand didn’t move. “Have you no care for our kingdom? If you do not marry, Imperia will have no heir.”
Nikias took a deep breath and shook his head. “Not necessarily.”
She scoffed. “I would rather see Imperia scattered and in ashes than let that boy, or any of his and his she-wolf’s wretched offspring, take the throne.”
“How long do you expect to live?”
She stepped forward, grabbing his arm. “Long enough to ensure our line continues.”
Her grip wasn’t tight enough to bruise. Not yet.
Nikias still tensed and his heart raced.
“Why are you so determined it must be this girl? She has refused you again and again. Isn’t her competing proof enough? She will not have you, not by her own volition. What will it take for you to give up on her? Why her of all creatures?”
Nikias ripped his arm out of her grip and sank onto the edge of the bed. He had no fight left in him. He stared at the scars of his religo lines on his wrist and whispered, “It is simple. I made a vow.”
Mother scoffed. “I’m well aware of the vow you made.”
Nikias shook his head, running a thumb over one of the scars. “Not that vow. This one is older, and far more precious to me. I made it a year after Faustina died. One year exactly. I stood there at her graveside, and I made this vow.”
Mother softened, as much as she was capable of it. Her skirts rustled as she shifted closer. “What was the vow?”
Nikias said, “I vowed to myself that I would only marry again if it was to a woman I loved and one who loved me in return.”
“Are you saying that’s what all this has been about?”
Nikias was tired. He was so tired of it all. Nikias wouldn’t be able to do it a third time. He couldn’t keep living like this. He couldn’t keep loving and never being loved back.
“Yes. I love her. And it was a miracle I ever did after having loved Faustina. I am not capable of doing it again.” Nikias slipped the necklaces out of his pocket, running his thumb over the etchings. “Aimilia will be the last woman I ever love. I will love her until I die, even though she continues to curse my name with every breath.”
Mother shook her head and said, “Nikias?—”
But he just held his hand up, not caring about the risk he took trying to silence her. He couldn’t stop the words from pouring out now that they’d started. She might be his most grievous tormentor, but she was still his mother. He couldn’tstop himself. She didn’t love him, but Nikias was fairly certain she was the only one who had ever come close.
“I loved Aimilia in silent agony before and I expected I would always do so, watching as she married Gavril and for the rest of my life, she would be forever out of my reach. Aimilia has made herself clear. If I could accept my fate then, I must find a way to do it again. She does not love me, so I must go back to loving her in silence.”
Mother said, “That vow… Nikias, you must see that it was foolish and born only out of grief. You do not need to love someone to marry them. All you need is a decent enough commander who can one day be queen and can give you children. You don’t need Commander Aimilia for that. You must get married and have an heir, regardless of whatever promises you made yourself.”
“You wanted to know why.” Nikias’ voice rasped. “There it is. There is nothing you can say to sway me.”
“Then why did you make a vow with your father to marry?”
Nikias shrugged. “At the time, I believed I could fulfill both. I thought she would marry me. I thought she had feelings for me.”
“Even if I were sympathetic, that doesn’t change the fact that you did make that vow. Your father said the second you set foot in Areator again, you will be married. How exactly do you expect to keep defying him?”
“How exactly is he going to enforce that?” Nikias’ head snapped up, and the words were flying from his lips. A lifelong fury swelled up, forcing them out despite everything in Nikias’ mind screaming at him that this simply wasn’t done. “He’s weak and bedridden. He might be able to hit me all he wants from there, but that’s only because I’ve never hit him back. Any day now he’s going to die, and when he does, I will be king. No one will have the power to try and bend me to their will.”
He was going to be hit. He needed to stop talking.
Silence kept him safe.
But he was done fooling himself.
He’d never been safe.
