I held my breath, pulse pounding relentlessly in my ears. He turned away and closed his eyes. As he rubbed a hand across his face, my chest caved at the despondency on his features, every inch of me yearning to comfort him, to reach out and?—
Before I could stop him, he twisted and slammed his fist into a tree.
55
Leo
My roar echoed through the forest. The skin on my knuckles split, but the sting was a light affliction to the thoughts racing in my mind.
It would heal quickly. It didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered.
Rose gasped. “Leo?—”
“This whole time,” I panted, pressing my forehead into the trunk. “We’ve had the answer this whole time. We could have savedthousands?—”
“But you would have died!”
“I wasn’t supposed to live to begin with!” Pushing off from the tree, I faced her again, watching her beautiful features solidify into resolve.
Part of me wanted to deny everything. To rage against her words, toss them aside as more lies fed to her by the emperor. But deep down, I knew.
My father had always been paranoid. A man constantly being chased by his past, never willing to put us in danger. I remembered how outraged he was when Rissa, Mother, or I would leave the house, how terrified he was of something happening. Of someone finding us. He’d established wards to protect the cottage, made usswear we would never speak to a soul if we didn’t have to, and panicked at the slightest sign of sickness or injury.
And the guilt. His guilt had rested on his shoulders every day of his life. It made sense now—the price to keep his family had meant the downfall of his empire.
My mother…she must know, too. The truth was slowly eating her alive, the way it had eaten my father. But instead of the paranoia and aggravation his guilt had manifested as, hers was burrowing into her, a poison she couldn’t escape from. Ever since Father died, she’d been losing pieces of herself, unable to bear the weight of it alone.
How was one supposed to live with the knowledge that their mere existence was the reason for an entire empire’s pain? For thousands of peoples lives being stolen, frozen in a single moment in time?
How wasIsupposed to live with it?
“How long have you known?” I asked.
She didn’t answer immediately. Her teeth pulled at her lower lip, and I cursed my body for still wanting her. For still hoping to find comfort in her as I had these past weeks.
“Since the first night I met with Gayl.”
I replayed that night again in my mind. Finding her in that dark hallway, begging her not to go see him. Then climbing up to her window just to make sure she was safe.
The night I asked her if we could start over.
I scoffed, channeling my hurt into anger. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. Nothing else about that night was the truth, was it?”
Her green eyes sparked with challenge. “I’m sorry, Leo, but I thought I was doing what was best. I didn’t know how to tell you the truth. I knew this would crush you, and I thought I could figure out a way around it. I thought I could find another solution that didn’t involve you.”
“Over two decades and countless highly trained Alchemists, and you thought you could solve everything in a handful of weeks? On your own?”
Her cheeks flushed, and my blood heated. Good—I wanted a fight. I needed to feel something besides this empty pit opening wider and wider, threatening to pull me under.
“I was trying tosaveyou,” she said in a raised voice, stepping closer to me. “If I’d told you, what would you have done? Gone off and sacrificed yourself like some noble martyr?”
“That would bemychoice to make, Rose!” I argued. “Youhiding this from me has taken that choice away.”
Her jaw twitched, but she didn’t back down. “I’m right, though. You would have chosen to die,” she pushed. “I shouldn’t have taken your choice away. You have the right to know the truth, and for that, I’m sorry.” She threw her hands in the air. “I’m sorry forso manythings. Look, I know you don’t approve of me learning blood magic. I should have told you about all of it, but…Fates, can’t you see I’m doing thisforyou?” Her brow knitted together, her words turning into a plea. “Getting close to him, learning about his past and his magic, figuring out how to become strong enough…it’s foryou. It’s been killing me to keep this a secret, but you know what?” Eyes blazing, she tilted her head to look up at me, wild and emboldened. “I would do it again, Leo. Because I’mnotgoing to lose you.”
She was so close now, I could reach out and grab her. I was stunned. In all our nights together, she was so controlled, so careful not to let her true feelings for me slip. Despite her refusal to speak them aloud, I felt it in the way she tucked her body into mine. The way her hand sought my fingers when the nightmares overtook her. The way she smiled at me when nobody else was looking, as if to say her joy was only for me.
But there was power in words. And Rose hid behind her fear of that, of giving voice to what had grown between us. I understood now why she’d kept that part of herself closed off.
