“It’s Lesha,” she said as if that explained everything.
For me, it did.
“At first light,” Rydian said. “In the meantime, we’ll gather supplies. And I’ll send Shade and Thorne to scout ahead.”
“What about horses?” I asked, remembering belatedly I had none of my own here—and I wasn’t exactly interested in getting back in that carriage.
“I’ll have Daegel and Keres bring horses up for all of us,” Rydian said.
I wanted to askupfrom where, but I swallowed the question. For now. At some point, I needed to learn all I could about the Midnight Court and its magically sealed gates. If Rydian thought I was going to simply bow under his command, he was going to be sorely disappointed.
“Horses will draw attention,” Amanti warned him.
“Without them, we’ll travel too slowly, and that makes us a target too,” Rydian said. “We’ll take the merchant road. It’s less traveled and hopefully not being used by Heliconia’s scouts.”
The merchant road.
I’d used it often enough in the last seven years, mostly to sneak through the Broadlands in search of a way to break the curse. None of those trips had yielded anything remotely close to an answer—including the last one. The day I killed an Obsidian in a crumbling cabin. The day Rydian found me again.
He’d chased me right back into my engagement with Callan.
All along, I’d thought he hated me for breaking my word to his half-brother. But now I wondered if he’d only been testing me. To make me decide once and for all where I stood. Not just with Callan but with Heliconia. As the Chosen One of the realm.
The Furiosities’ champion.
My father’s daughter.
“Aurelia?” Amanti’s voice pulled me back. “You good with that?”
“Yes.” I forced the past aside. And did my best to ignore whatever feelings I still had for Rydian. He hadn’t cared if I’d married Callan. I needed to remember that.
“Then I suggest we all get some rest.” Amanti moved toward the door, then paused. “For what it’s worth, I think this is the right call. The naiad have stayed neutral too long. It’s time they fought for the fate of Menryth.”
After she left, silence stretched between Rydian and me.
Outside, the late afternoon sun had already dipped behind the trees. Inside, the torches burned lower, casting longer shadows. I should have left too, should have retreated to my chambers to prepare. Instead, I found myself frozen, unable to look away from him.
“You were right,” he said finally. “Earlier. I don’t get to decide what you’re ready for. That wasn’t fair.”
The admission surprised me, but I kept my arms crossed. “You’re trying to protect me. I understand that.”
“Understanding it doesn’t make it acceptable.” He moved around the table slowly, maintaining distance. “I sent you here because I thought I knew better. I thought I was protecting you. Instead, I just...” He stopped, jaw clenching. “I hurt you. And I’ve been trying to figure out how to navigate this ever since.”
My throat tightened, but I forced the words out. “Navigate what, exactly? Because we haven’t actually talked about any of it, have we? Not about you coming to my room that night in Grey Oak, sharing my bed. Not about how you lied to me for seven years about who you really were that night or why you introduced yourself. Not about—” I stopped, hating how my voice wavered. “Not about you shoving me into that carriage.”
The muscle in his jaw ticked. “You would have died if I hadn’t.”
“That was my choice to make." The anger felt good, safer than the confusion underneath it. “Just like it was my choice who I shared a bed with. Or it should have been. If I’d known the truth about who you were, what you wanted from me, I might have chosen differently.”
“Aurelia—”
“Was I just a job?” The question burst out before I could stop it. “Track down the Chosen One, get her to trust you, open the gates to your precious kingdom? Was that all it was?”
Silence stretched between us, heavy and suffocating.
“At first?” His voice was rough. “Yes.”
The honesty shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. I’d known, hadn’t I? Deep down. From the moment he’d told me of their bargain with the gods.
