Lore had long since allowed them their privacy, affecting the role of chaperone less and less these days. Caris was of majority age, and while she might be Rourke and Ashion’s queen, Nathaniel had fallen for her when she’d been an engineering student with a bright future ahead of her with her bloodline’s company, Six Point Mechanics. Her rank as a baroness had never bothered him, but her being queen made him question what he wanted for her own safety and not his own heart—what was left of it.
“Nathaniel,” Caris said, never looking away. “You are important to me. I care about you dearly, and my love for you will never be in question.”
“Some say it should be.”
Her lips twisted sadly, grief flickering across her gray eyes. “Then they are wrong.”
Some part of him would always believe the detractors who looked at him askance, who would never trust him with information much less Caris’ life. Maurus had become resigned to letting him be in Caris’ presence, but he knew the captain of the Royal Guard would put a bullet through his heart if he thought Nathaniel would harm Caris again.
Nathaniel would welcome it if that horror ever came to pass again.
He pulled her hand away from his chest and held it in both of his. Her fingers were bare of rings, and the only one he’d ever given her hung around her neck. Before everything that led up to the riot in Amari last summer and what came after, he’d held fast to the hope of one day offering her an engagement ring and taking her name.
But that was when he thought he’d be the man who could stand whole and devoted beside her, without questioning if his mind was his own or if the next breath he took would be his last.
His desire for intimacy in the bedroom had fallen by the wayside, unwilling to show the scars he now lived with to anyone, even himself. Nathaniel could not look at his reflection in a mirror and refused for a valet to aid him in dressing until his shirt was buttoned up first.
Caris had never seemed to mind that they did nothing more than kiss, enjoying simply being with him, which was a grace Nathaniel hadn’t expected. But Caris never initiated anything more than the kisses they shared or the quiet moments when they held each other. She’d confessed, once, that she’d never desired what came with the marriage bed, but she desired him, loved him, even, in her own way, and Nathaniel could not deny her his heart.
“You are the kindest person I know,” Nathaniel said, voice a little rough.
She framed his face with her hands, leaning in to kiss him softly on the mouth. “You flatter me.”
“I speak nothing but the truth.”
She smiled, gaze softening. “So that means you’ll not argue about joining me for the journey to the Warden’s Island?”
“So long as you keep me ignorant of any information I should not be privy to. I know I’m not the only reason why you want to return there.”
“Ksenia made it clear during our last communications that she wants to run further tests on you, but no, you aren’t the only reason I’m going.”
“Don’t tell me secrets that will endanger you,” he warned.
She reached up to tug on one of her curls before resting her elbow on the table and slouching a little. “I never wanted to be queen. That’s not a secret. I wanted to be an engineer.”
“You still are.”
“Yes, but now I’m this living banner for Ashion to rally behind, and I hate that people are dying for me. I don’t want their deaths to be wasted if something happens to me.”
He knew of the assassination attempts directed at him, of the Blades stopped by soldiers and magicians, sometimes at great cost to the Royal Guard. The home they shared was heavily guarded, the streets surrounding their block restricted. Caris’ survival was integral to Ashion remaining an independent country. Without her, the push for freedom from Daijal and that country’s terrible laws that favored debt bondage would crumble. “The people would fight in your memory.”
Her mouth drew down at the corners, something bitter in the twist of her lips. “I won’t be a martyr. If Eimarille’s Blades ever do reach me, I don’t want people to fight for a memory when there is a perfectly acceptable Rourke waiting in the shadows.”
Nathaniel shook his head, staring at her beseechingly. “My darling, you shouldn’t speak of such things to me.”
“I won’t treat you as other,” she replied fiercely. “I won’t treat you as less or be fearful of somewhat-ifscenario. People will find out soon enough that Eimarille and I have a brother. It makes no sense to keep you in the dark when that is the whole reason I’m flying to the Warden’s Island.”
He opened his mouth but couldn’t quite find the words. After a moment, he reached for his teacup and took a hefty swallow of the cooling liquid. “Prince Alasandair is alive?”
“The star gods gave us all different roads to walk.” She looked away, a pensive expression in her eyes. “I always wondered what it would be like to have a sibling when I was growing up.”
Nathaniel set his teacup aside and covered her hand on the table with his. He was fearful of the information she’d revealed somehow being used wrongly by him. If she was certain the news wouldn’t be a secret for much longer, Nathaniel was glad to know it so he could be there for her. “I’m certain he must be far kinder than Eimarille.”
Caris shrugged one shoulder, gaze cutting back to him. “Alasandair is a warden. He goes by a different name and refuses to claim the Rourke bloodline.”
“So you’re flying there to try to convince him to join your cause?”
“I can be persuasive.”
