The silver moonlight coming in from the window, casting the floor in shadows. The broad leaves of a potted plant by the armoire. The dwindling embers in the fireplace a few feet from my chair. I let my breaths even out to their yellow and orange glow.
Two things I could feel.
The velvet of the armrest coated in burgundy fabric, soft and fuzzy beneath my fingers. The weight of my hair resting against my chest and lightly brushing my exposed arm when I turned my head.
One thing I could smell.
Leather and sweet grass.
My eyes locked with Thorne’s. His gaze bore into mine, and the tidal wave subsided.
“I understand if you want to leave, Clarissa,” Galen said, causing both Thorne and me to turn back to him. “I would never try to hold you here against your will. The choice is yours, as it should’ve been all along.” He chewed on his bottom lip before adding, “But…I hope you’ll consider it. What this would mean, not just for me, but my entire kingdom.”
I nodded and rose to my feet, my normal composure washingover me. “I need to think. It’s not a no, Galen,” I said when his face fell. “Give me a little bit of time. You owe me that much.”
A muscle in his neck twitched, but he gave a curt nod. When I opened and shut the door to his chambers behind me, I leaned my head against the hard wood for a moment before heading in the direction I’d come from, desperate to feel the night’s wind on my skin before I suffocated.
21
Thorne
“You had no right to tell her,” Galen barked at me.
My mouth fell open. “You can’t be serious.”
He stalked toward me, his forlorn expression from earlier with Clarissa now shifting to indignation. “It ismycurse to bear, andmycall to make. We’ve spoken about this, and you knew I wasn’t ready. You went behind my back and?—”
“That’s the problem, Galen,” I interrupted, trying to keep my voice even. “Youshould have told her already. All of this could have been avoided if you’d been honest with her. It took her stumbling upon a cursed piece of the hedge maze tonight for her to finally snap and break through the lies. I don’t know if it’s because of your pride or your fear, but either way, it might have cost you greatly.”
His chest swelled with anger. “Howdareyou speak to me that way? I am yourking,Thorne. You forget your place.”
“You mean, your place as a royal advisor? Or as a friend? Why didn’t you tell me about the Fates and their deal?” All of my irritation with him burst to the surface, like fire racing through my veins. With it came a sting of betrayal. After all we’d been through, after the way I’d stood by him, he’d still kept such an enormous part of the curse from me.
This changedeverything.
Mother thought Galen’s removal would break the curse. She thought putting someone else in his place was the best hope for a better future. But now? Now that I knew this marriage to Clarissa would take away the curse? It was the cause of so much pain, so much death, so many fears. It made sense why Galen was insistent on bringing Clarissa over. Shewashis hope. She was his answer.
But he isn’touranswer,a voice that sounded like my mother’s whispered in the back of my mind.He can’t rule our people.
Perhaps he wasn’t what was best for Mysthelm, but that didn’t mean I wanted to see him hurt. That didn’t mean I wanted him to endure this curse until it got too late. After seeing with my own eyes how widespread his powers were reaching, I was beginning to fear my mother’s theory wouldn’t work. Thatnothingcould stop it.
Nothing except…Clarissa.
What if she left, Galen stepped down, and the curse persisted? Still continued to kill our land? Ourpeople? What ifshewas our only chance?
Doubts crept in my mind. In the span of mere minutes, I’d learned the empress might be our greatest hope for survival, then watched her walk straight out the doors. It sent a wave of helplessness skittering across my skin.
He needed her.Weneeded her. Even if it went against my mother’s plan.
“I’m going to go find her,” I said, spinning on my heel and ignoring Galen’s flared nostrils and the bulging vein in his neck. “Imprison me for disobedience if you want, Galen, but someone has to fix this.”
If he responded, I didn’t hear it. I was already out of the room and striding down the hall. If I had to guess, I didn’t think Clarissa would go to bed. I imagined she’d be…
Her blonde waves were the first thing I saw when I opened the doors leading to the grounds at the back of the manor. She was pacing furiously back and forth in front of the entrance to the hedge maze. A gentle breeze lifted the bottom of her short-sleevedgreen jumpsuit, and I absentmindedly wondered if she might be cold.
From the door, I could vaguely see her expression in the moonlight and a couple of swinging lanterns staked into the ground. Her pinched brow, the pink blush of vexation on her cheeks, the way her lips fluttered silently as if having a conversation with herself.
This empress became more and more intriguing every time I was with her. Back in Galen’s chambers, I hadseenher change. It was a visible transformation, the way she went from intoxicating rage to calm and collected in mere seconds. I could tell she felt her emotions so deeply. From her annoyance the day I met her at the ship, to how poised she was when meeting Galen and the Silenus regent family, to anger and betrayal when we were in the hedge maze. But she was able to turn it off like flicking out a candle. At the drop of a hat, she could stand regal. Strong.
