Warmth returned to the depths of his brown eyes, like a lamp had filled them with light. He stayed close to her, and the proximity confused her, caused her stomach to turn over on itself with an unexpected anxiety. She pulled her hand back, running it through her hair.
But she couldn’t bring herself to scoot away—this wasRoman. He was alive. Not once did she believe she would ever get the chance to see him again, to look upon him in adulthood, and know he was safe.
A smile split his face. “We have all the time in the world tonight.” He leaned his side against the back of the couch, again hitching a leg beneath his other one and settling in like no time had passed since he’d last sat here. Their knees almost touched. “Please, don’t go yet. I… want to know about you. Tell me everything that has happened since I last saw you.”
There was far too much to tell, too much life that had passed by. Yet her emotions stirred at the sound of a voice she had thought with certainty she would never hear again. She had spent a decade wondering how his features would have shifted. She had thought the sight impossible, and now she wasn’t quite ready to give it up.
Love is a useless thing, her father’s voice floated in her mind.
But it’s not, her own whispered back.It’s worth it to care for someone.
“Tell me a story first,” she requested.
With a small chuckle, Roman obliged. He relayed the days after he’d been assigned to Innisjour. Some memories were painful, others lighthearted. Most, he insisted, were absent of anything worthwhile. She told him of the months after he’d left. Of the new languages she had learned and the books she’d read. She did not tell him of Icruria or Reid or the life she had chosen in another nation. Something about his eyes told her he couldn’t bear it. And it made her wonder what pieces of his life he was leaving out, too, because if she had strategically chosen what to tell him, certainly he’d done the same.
“You’re afraid of him,” Roman said eventually, referring to Ozik. The light outside began to chase away the moon, bathing the carpet in a red glow and signaling the end of their time. The fire had long died. She rebelled against that fact, wondering how much more of the night she could squeeze from this very moment. “But you do not need to be afraid of me. He may have brought me here, but he’s not the reason I’m staying.”
Vaasa inspected Roman’s pristine coat and pants, all the way down to the leather of his boots, his Asteryan blue coat glaring back at her. The set of iron keys hanging near his hip bone was the only break in the blue.
They were too close; she was tired and losing her grip on her composure. She stood from the couch. “If I am truly to be an empress, I should be afraid of everyone. And if you are truly my lead sentinel…” She sighed, shaking her head. “So should you.”
Roman pursed his lips but didn’t argue.
“I should go,” she whispered.
“You should,” he agreed.
She paused, not entirely sure how to let the moment go. “When will I see you again?”
A soft smile spread across his lips. Even wary from no sleep, he’d never broached haggard. Still sturdy. Still handsome. Bits of the expressions she’d once known leaked through, and his youthful excitement shone again on his face. “I suppose there’s no use in hiding from you any longer. I’d thought you needed time with the lords, but…” he trailed off.
“I don’t need time with the lords,” she said.
He nodded contently. “Then you’ll see me soon. Good night,” he told her, though she knew the night was long gone.
“Good night,” she whispered.
It was the last thing she said before she turned and fled the room. A new guard waited outside, and she knew Roman would have the better sense to find a way out of the old wing that didn’t lead to anyone thinking they’d spent the night alone. They were well practiced, after all. When she entered her mother’s and father’s quarters again, she curled up on the couch beneath a blanket and breathed deeply. Her mind whirled with everything she had just come to know.
Ozik had placed Roman strategically, had given her this crumb for a purpose. It was another piece of this puzzle shecouldn’t quite put together. Yet she had seen those iron keys dangling at his waist, and she was willing to bet one of them led to Amalie’s prison.
He had held her hand.
She looked down at it, and shame washed over her.
She had gotten a taste, had heard the sound of Reid’s name, and suddenly she was breaking—the carefully crafted dam of her feral longing cracked. Desperation filled her like a well. Every cut she had tried and failed to stave off opened in a chasm. Vaasa buried her head into her blankets, tears streaming down her face. It may have been warm, but the very depths of her still felt cold.
Where was Reid? Did he know the merchants were the only way he’d survive the cays, and that they would betray him the moment they heard his Icrurian tongue? Did he think he could make it around the Sheets or navigate the Bay of Innisjour with its mysterious fatal tides?
Did he know that he would not reach her, no matter how hard he tried?
CHAPTER
10
Reid stared at the pirate, torn between lying and telling the full truth. Strategy, at least between people, had never been his area of expertise. On the battlefield he could maneuver soldiers like chess pieces, yet conversation had always gotten the better of him. In hindsight, it was foolish to assume he could keep his identity concealed for long. But what he hadn’t expected was for a pirate to be the person to uncover it.
For her to have a map of the continent more accurate than any of his armies.
