Her head snapped up, fury clear as the darkening sky. There was no need to guess her emotions this time.
“Keeping me safe? Protecting me? That’s what you were doing?” she demanded.
“Yes,” he insisted.
“How long have you known my magic hasn’t been working properly? How long have you known it would bring me to you?”
The words had a dangerous edge to them. An edge he hadn’t heard from her in weeks as he’d painstakingly worked to break down her walls. This was the same hard female who’d demanded an arrow back at the Esbat Festival.
“How long,husband?”she hissed, and some twisted part of him relished this. This wasn’t the careful mask she always kept in place. This was an uncontrolled emotion. Raw and real, even if it was anger directed at him.
“Since you left the gardens after lying to me about needing the arrow back for your power to work properly,” he finally answered.
Her eyes narrowed. “How did you know I was lying? No. Wait.” She shook her head as if trying to clear her thoughts of so many questions so she could stay focused on one. “How did you know my power wasn’t working right? Do you…” She’d been sitting back on her heels, and she pushed up onto her knees now. For a split second, it looked like she was going to reach for him. He wished she would have. Instead, she shook out her hands and asked, “Do you know what’s wrong with my power?”
“Yes,” he answered, holding her stare.
Her features brightened, a tentative hope shining through. “Then you can help me—” The hope was fleeting, and she frowned. “Why would my ashes bring me to you unless you had something to do with…” It wasn’t a realization so much as a confirmation of something she’d suspected. He expected nothing less after he’d sent that message to her, and he watched more emotions play across her face than he’d ever seen from her. Dread and fury, betrayal and hurt. “How?” she whispered.
Her smoke was swirling around her, the ashes she commanded trembling. His own magic could feel it all as it continued to drift and slink around them.
Cethin reached out, Kailia going utterly still as he picked up the crystal at her throat. “Blue kyanite is a useful crystal for my abilities,” he mused, twisting it gently between his thumb and forefinger. “It’s known to help you channel your self-worth, but it also opens your mind to more lucid dreams.”
“What does that have to do with my magic?”
“I placed an enchantment on this particular crystal, ensuring that you would always come back to me.”
That whenever she tried to move through her power in his presence, she never went anywhere. That in her dreams, her ashes brought her directly to him.
In the next breath, he was cursing as she lunged at him. She was so godsdamn unpredictable, he hadn’t expected her to move so fast. His back hit the sand, some of the air forced from his lungs at the surprisingly hard impact. The waves kept rolling in, soaking his tunic, pants, and hair, and Kailia was atop him, straddling his waist with a dagger to his throat.
“You did this to me?” she demanded. “For months, I have been going mad. For months, I’ve spent hours searching for answers. Filled with worry that I would never be the same, and you?—”
“You never asked me,” he interrupted calmly, trying desperately not to focus on the fact she had her thighs on either side of him. Battling that and trying to control his magic was…not easy, especially when hewantedto focus on how she felt atop him. “Never once did you ask me for help.”
“As if you would have told me any of this,” she sneered, leaning closer. Her hair dragged along his chest, and he could feel her breath on his lips with each snarled word.
“I would have helped,” he countered, digging his fingers into the sand so he didn’t reach up and grip her hips.
Her features twisted into a furious disgust. “Helped? You would have painted yourself the hero, all while fixing the very problemyoucreated.” The dagger still at his throat, she reached up and tugged at the crystal, trying to yank it free. “You acted as if you didn’t know where this necklace came from. Feigned jealousy about it.”
“You cannot remove it yourself,” he said conversationally.
“Then take it off,” she demanded. “Now.”
“I can’t do that, tiny fiend. The entire purpose of the necklace is to ensure you always come back to me.”
A growl of frustration came from her, and the dagger pressed a little sharper against his throat. “I don’t understand. I was given this necklace by the merchant.”
“That I Traveled to after you left the castle,” he said. “I paid for the necklace and paid even more for them to ensure you received it. I also asked Wren to ensure you put it on. Don’t be angry with her, though. She thought it a sweet gesture when I asked her not to tell you it was from me.”
“So you used her too?” Kailia snarled.
“If you want to call it that.”
“How’d you even know about that necklace?”
“I saw you looking at it the night before.”
