“We got there in time,” he said, his voice ruffling my hair. “Or not in time, because we didn’t save everyone. There were…so many of them. A swarm. A horde. Pure devastation.”
I could feel the vibration of his words through his chest, the way his voice broke with grief and exhaustion. My magic responded to his pain, wind currents stirring around us.
I stroked his back, letting him get it all out.
“We fought. Killed so many I lost count. Gavelle tore through them, Lakast burned them to ash. But they kept coming. Cresting the horizon. Screaming as they swarmed through the village. They plucked up one terrified villager after another, sucking them dry before I could reach them. And I tried. Fates know how I tried. But I couldn’t kill them all. Couldn’t kill enough to keep them from…” His swallow took a long time to go down.
“My soldiers fought until the ground was slick with their own blood.” His arms tightened around me.
“Every scream, every life lost is on me.” His voice broke on the words. “A king who can’t protect his people is no king at all.”
Something fierce and protective roared to life in my chest. “You’re the best king I’ve ever known. Don’t you dare diminish that because evil exists in this world.”
I wished there was something I could do to ease his pain.
“Then they stopped.” His voice went quiet. “All at once. They turned and fled back across the plain. We gave chase. We always do. We don’t stop as long as there’s even one left to kill. But they disappeared into the wasteland, oozing into the muck and slinking through the dense jungle. Too few villagers were left alive. Somehow, most of my army made it through, but the village…” He leaned back and cupped my face, staring into my eyes. “Isi, that village held three hundred people. And now there are less than a hundred left. Their cries of pain will haunt me forever.”
A log shifted in the hearth, and the crackles grew louder. My heart thudded, each word painting a devastating image in my mind.
“Why did they stop?” I asked.
He shook his head and leaned forward, his forehead brushing mine. “I don’t know. We chased them, but they’re fast. And you don’t follow Skathes into the wasteland if you want to come back.”
I could hear what he wasn’t saying, that he’d wanted to give chase anyway.
His golden gaze caught mine, and my chest squeezed tight. “Every time I see the wasteland, it’s bigger. A mass of rotting logs, vines, mud, and boiling filth. Wherever the Skathe go, they leave a trail of themselves behind. The land doesn’t only die, it forgets it ever lived. It’s as if it’s been scrubbed out of this world.”
I stroked his jaw. “You came back.”
“I had to.” His gaze flicked to my mouth before dragging back up. “You’re here.”
The air between us went still, charged with energy. My heartbeat tripped over itself.
“I was worried about you.” Emotions filled me too much to pretend otherwise. “I thought—” The words got caught in my throat, and I shook my head. “Never mind.”
“No.” His hands framed my face with his warm hands. “Say it.”
“I was worried they might’ve killed you.”
His mouth curved. Not quite a smile, but something that tried. “I won’t allow the Skathes to take me from you.”
“Don’t joke.”
“I’m not.” He stroked my cheekbones with his thumbs. “I wasn’t afraid of dying out there. I was afraid of not getting back here to you.”
The words stole the air from my lungs. This man, this king, who faced down armies and monsters, had been terrified. Not of death, but of leaving me.
“I’ve been a king since I was fifteen, Isi. But I’ve never been just a man until you.”
And there it was. The moment my heart completely surrendered to his.
My heart stopped. Restarted. Forgot how to beat at a normal rhythm. “Trew?—”
I could lie to myself and call this relief, or gratitude, or court politics tangled into something messier. But it wasn’t. I knew what it was. I’d known for a while, if I was honest.
Love.
The word settled into my bones like it had been carved there from birth, waiting for this moment and this man to bring it to life. This wasn’t the gentle affection of fairy tales or the desperate passion of tragic ballads. This was something primal and eternal, the recognition of a soul meeting its match across lifetimes.
