“Yes,” said the king.
Sephia tried again to go back to her plans. But her heart was pounding too hard, and her breaths were coming and going too rapidly for her to think about magic anymore. So she kept perfectly still and listened as the king finally continued, in a quiet but powerfully focused voice.
“I do,” he said, “But I don’t believe it is my place to hand out this particular sentence. She was to be the bride of my brother; the lies she’s told have affected Prince Tarron the most, and so I believe he should be the one that decides her punishment. And whatever plan he has for her, it has my full support.”
Rough hands jerked Sephia to her feet.
She held her breath, and it made all of the sounds around her suddenly louder. Footsteps coming closer. The sound of another sword being drawn. The whispers of the council and all of the servants and guards surrounding them.
Sephia braced herself for the feeling of a second sword against her neck.
She hoped it would be over quickly.
She hoped the Sun Court would at least be kind enough to not tell her family the full details of this moment; Nora would not be able to bear such a thing.
She closed her eyes tightly once more. Imagined herself someplace far away—back in the woods with Nora, climbing that great sycamore tree, the honeysuckle-scented wind blowing the waves of their hair about.
She was at peace.
She was slipping away already.
And then she heard the prince say: “I still plan to marry her.”
Chapter 16
Silence.
The room went so still that Sephia felt off-balance, unable to see and now unable to hear anything that might have helped ground her. The moment felt suspended, surreal.
What was going on?
A blade slipped between the bindings on her wrists. Pulled slowly, carefully, and then suddenly those bindings were falling away.
As they hit the ground, she finally remembered to breathe.
Gentle hands fumbled with her blindfold, and then it was gone as well. She blinked slowly. Let her eyes adjust to the change in lighting. Reminded herself to keep breathing as her vision cleared and she found herself face to face with the prince.
Noise was building all around them. Whispers. Objections. Arguments.She wasn’t listening to any of it. She was lost to the world outside, just staring into Tarron’s eyes, and he was staring into hers, and all she could think was…
He hadchosenher.
All of her life, she had been the Shadow twin—the dark one, the feared one, the ruthless one. That was who she was, and how she had arrived in this place, and how she had planned to leave it.
And heknewthat, now.
But somehow, he didn’t care.
He was the sun, but he wanted to be with her in spite of her shadows.
“I know it isn’t the way of things,” he said, voice low and meant only for her. “But before you arrived, it’s…it’s like I was sleeping. I wanted nothing to do with any of these feelings, or any of thischaos. Not until you. You woke me up. ” He took her hands, pulled her closer. “And I would forgive every mistake, undo every law, and break every tradition, before I chose to go back to sleep without you.”
There were a thousand things she wanted to say and do in that moment. Apologies, declarations, questions.
She wanted to kiss him.
She wanted to hold tighter to his hands and drag him out of this room, out of this palace.
In the end she only kept still, because it was enough to just be there for a moment, drinking him in, letting the words he’d said settle over her like a warm blanket wrapping around her, keeping her safe.
