I had loved Malakai—I would always hold love for him. The piece of my heart that had been torn from my chest, warped, and put back together would always carry an echo of the young love that fate had torn apart.
I had thought it all belonged to me now, but I was wrong.
There was another piece, stronger and yet to be shredded, that belonged to Tol. To the friend who was my moonlight on a dark night. Who held me in my bleakest moments and waited for me to come back to myself. Who not only saw my rough edges and loved each one but also found the soft sides hidden beneath.
We had told each other as much before I completed the Undertaking.
You carry a piece of my heart.
And you, mine.
I hadn’t understood the gravity of those words at the time. What he truly meant. Even now, with Tol laying his heart bare before me, I still didn’t know whatmyheart wanted.
But awareness was stirring inside me—a beast that wanted that happiness Tol spoke of. An instinct that might know how to find it if I could fight my way past the pain I’d suffered so far, avoiding any more slices from the shattered pieces of myself.
“I don’t know what capacity I can offer yet,” I whispered, hating myself for not having a suitable answer for him.
He released a low laugh, his breath fanning across my skin. “I’m not asking you to know. I’m asking nothing of you.”
He meant it, too. If I wished, he would bury this day beneath the mountains and let the beautiful friendship we had built over the pasttwenty years bloom on its grave. Because Tolek Vincienzo would never ask anything that I could not give.
“I leave tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll be back in three weeks.”
His piece of my heart cried out at the fact that he was leaving so soon after I’d learned his truth, but perhaps it was good. I needed time to be alone, to nurse my own wounds, repair my own heart. To figure out what it wanted.
“Maybe that time will help me—figure this out.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t have to.”
Yes, it did. He deserved an answer. The fact that he didn’t ask for one only made me want to find it more.
“Take this.” I unclipped my grandmother’s pin from my leathers. “For when you go. So I’ll be with you.”
The sun slipped behind the mountains, stars popping into the violet sky and the world falling into serenity. As if nature itself had been waiting for Tolek to reveal his secret and was finding some peace in the truth. Tenderly, he wrapped his fingers around the pin.
“I’ll see you in three weeks’ time, Alabath.” Tolek kissed my cheek, the brush there and gone as quickly as a hummingbird’s wing, but my breath caught in my throat.
“I’ll see you then, Vincienzo.”
I backed away, not once breaking eye contact with him as he clipped my pin onto the left breast of his leathers. I could no longer avoid the depth in his stare that begged me to fall over the edge into it.
If I chose to, I knew he’d catch me. Tol would remain my tether if I allowed him to.
I watchedhim leave the next morning.
He tried to sneak out before the sun rose, but I hadn’t slept. Hoods drawn, weapons secured, four figures marched out of the palace grounds on horseback.
From my balcony, crisp twilight air winding its way around my bare feet and lifting my silk robe, I tracked the figure in the front.
My eyes stung, but I told myself it would be okay. I’d see him soon.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ophelia
“How are you feeling?”Santorina asked as we walked the path through the gardens, snapping stems and pulling roots for ointments.
A week had passed since Tolek left, and still my heart seemed to be miles away, speeding toward the Mindshaper capital, while my head was in Damenal, trying to strategize for a war, decode Damien’s prophecy, and predict Kakias’s next move.
