Part of me was relieved. Because without Nevin, with Ryak’s execution…theDothikkar’s mission had failed. My brother would be safe, wouldn’t he?
But the Heartstone Accords would likely fail between our two nations. Perhaps no more Dakkari would be sent to Karak. What then? Would a peace even be possible? Or would it only further motivate theDothikkarto believe the Karag were our enemies?
Alaryk sank down beside me, stretching his longs legs out, heat radiating off his chest.
“It’s for the best, Amaia,” he finally said.
A tiny bubble of unease spread through me.
I glanced over at him, my gaze gliding over his bare chest, his half-unlaced pants. The perfect distraction. Maybe he’d meant it to be one as he’d broken the news of his decision.
When my fingers trailed to his thigh, he cut me a look in assessment. I shifted, swinging my leg over him until I was settled in his lap. Was it selfish that I wanted his arms around me? Was it selfish to want that when they made me feel safe and protected?
He was always everything to everyone else. A leader, cold and unyielding, the one who had to make the tough, unpopular choices, despite the consequences. He carried the weight of Samryn’s curse on his shoulders, the weight of awar, I knew, on his shoulders, using someone he’d once loved as a weapon. His people respected him, though it had been difficult as a Hartan boy growing up in Karak.
“I’ve never known anyone like you,” I told him softly. “I doubt I ever will again.”
His eyes flickered silver, a mere flash. Had I surprised him? But I couldn’t understand why that would be. He had to know that he was singular.
And I will miss him terribly when I have to return to Dakkar,came the certain thought.
My heart had already sunk into him. How deeply, I didn’t know.
But maybe I should leave with Brune and Nevin.
I might be able to move on with my life if I was able to salvage my heartnow. Leaving him would break it, but it wasn’t too late, was it?
Then I chastised myself because there was still Samryn to consider. I wouldn’t leave him to suffer his curse. Not for anything.
Even if it frightened me how much I’d come to care for Alaryk Arn’dyne.
He must’ve seen the peculiar expression cross my face. “What is it?”
“We were never meant to meet,” I said simply, trying to keep my morose thoughts away from my tone. “If I’d had my way. It’s strange to think that now.”
“What do you mean?”
I had to tread carefully, I realized belatedly. But I could give Alaryk a half-truth, even though my belly roiled with it. I hated lying. And being here, being with him…it was the biggest lie of all.
Could I tell him?I wondered, debating for a brief moment. Iwantedto. Desperately. But there was too much I didn’t know happening in the background, in the shadows of theDothikkar’spalace. There was something happening I couldn’t see, something I didn’t understand yet. I’d sensed it since we first arrived. So far away from Dothik, I wouldn’t be able to protect my family if their lives were at risk—so I had to protect them from afar.
It was safer to lie.
“My brother was meant to be here,” I confessed softly.
His head tilted as my hand skimmed his chest, the pad of my finger brushing the metal through his nipple. “You have a brother?”
“Yes, I suppose I’ve never said,” I murmured, darting a look up at him. “His name is Kiron. He’s a guardsman.”
Alaryk stiffened slightly under me. “Oh?”
“That was all he ever wanted to be,” I continued. “We were inseparable growing up. He was my best friend. And I saw his eyes as he watched the patrols through the city. Their glittering armor. And to a boy from the Market District, living in theDothikkar’s palace must’ve seemed like a grand adventure. So when he came of age, he worked hard, harder than anyone else, to achieve what he wanted. Even if it broke our hearts.”
“What do you mean?”
I sighed, sitting back on his thighs, my hands dropping away from him. One came up to my pendant, rubbing at the fire gem out of habit until Alaryk’s face glowed with it.
“Training is intense. You’re required to choose, essentially. Your life…or the king. All of them swear their allegiance. And when Kiron did the same, it was like one moment he was there, the next he was gone from our lives. It was like a death in a way. When you spend time with someone nearly every waking moment, when you can read them as easily as you read yourself, every twitch of their face, every movement, when you can identify them from five blocks down just by the way they walk. And then to…not. When Kiron went to training, we didn’t see him for four months straight, even though he wasn’t far. It…it broke my heart a little. It really splintered my mother’s, though she would never say that.”
