His eyes stayed on mine. “You have people who love you and will be left in the wake of your decisions too. If you’re caught—” Col’s voice cracked. “Well, I’ll destroy every part of Rivale to get to you. I’ll void each person’s magic and Amalee will rot every last one of them before I let anything happen to you.”
“If I’m arrested, maybe they’ll send me to see my mother sooner than expected.” My tone was flippant, trying to make light of a very real possibility. “It’s a win-win situation either way.”
“That’s not even funny,” Col continued. “I don’t want to live in a world without you. Stay in Kuroden.”
I shook my head. “I’ll fix as much as I can while I’m here, though I’m still failing miserably.”
“I don’t care about any of it.” Col raised his voice, and I flinched. He dropped his tone half a breath later. “This isn’t about the seeps or the land. This is about you and me. You can’t deny the feelings between us.”
“Feelings are irrelevant.” I moved toward the door, slipping from his arms.
His eyes flashed black as he rubbed his hand across his forehead. It was the truth, and he knew it just as much as I did.
I was tempted to take back my words and crawl into bed with him; there was even a part of me that wanted to curl up and sleep.
“Goodnight.” I gave him a tight smile and left.
25
AUDRYN
Ipulled the front of my shirt away from my sweat-soaked body and fanned it, desperate to cool down. Even with the colder climate, working on the land kept me hot. We’d been outside most of the day while Athela sent a steady stream of food and drinks in our direction. Sky and Amalee sat near the steps of the castle porch while I sank into the gravel next to the little pond full of orange and white fish.
“I think you’ve done enough for today.” Col rubbed my back with one hand while holding a book in the other.
“I’m fine.” I dug my hands back into the gravel.
If he wasn’t taking care of me or roaming his hands over my body, he was reading nearby. In the evenings he would lie in my bed and read stories out of the small book from his childhood. Most of the time, I fell asleep before he made it to the end. Several times I’d woken and found my bed empty with the covers pulled up around me. It had become a welcome routine.
“We should go to the tavern tonight. There will be people with stringed instruments, and a bunch of the locals are selling baked goods,” Sky said.
Amalee groaned, letting the obliterated gravel dust fall from her hands adding to the small pile in front of her.
“Athela wanted to host dinner tonight.” Fisher leaned on the doorframe.
My eyes shot up to him, as did everyone else’s. He’d been spending so much time at the castle, I regularly lost track of his whereabouts. But when I did see him, he looked happy.
“Oh, really?” Amalee eyed him suspiciously. “Are you hosting together, or will you just be in attendance?”
The guard didn’t look away and narrowed his eyes at the dark-haired woman. “You shouldn’t make assumptions.”
“My mother is a grown woman, and she’s free to do as she pleases, as we all are,” Col said casually, not looking up from the leather-bound book. “Let her know we’ll be there.” He gazed up at the horizon. “Maybe another hour or so. We’ll go into town after.”
“Do you want to go with us?” I asked Fisher, who was eyeing Col’s hand still rubbing my back. There were moments he’d seen us brush up against one another, but we hadn’t been so blatant, and I had honestly stopped caring.
He nodded his head, looked down at the pile of dirt near Amalee, and arched a brow. With a lift of his hand, a hum of magic moved through the air, and Col directed his onyx eyes in the guard’s direction. I placed a palm on his leg to calm his nerves.
Fisher conjured water into his palm and let it trickle off into the dirt pile in a slow drizzle. The tiny particles and water danced, combining into a thick mud. It wasn’t just mud, but soil. The mixture might’ve been missing some nutrients and minerals, but it looked more like the ground I was used to working on than the black gravel surrounding us.
“What the fuck?” The words rolled out of my mouth in a whisper. I hadn’t considered changing the makeup of the gravel, making the same mistake as Ryder with the bitumen.
Fisher’s eyes drew to mine. “Let your neighbors help put your fire out, Audryn.”
I chuckled. Somehow I’d overlooked a solution that should’ve been obvious from the beginning. Much like Col helping me solve the problems with the seeps, Amalee and Fisher could’ve helped me with the land weeks ago.
Col huffed a breath out of his cracked smile. “I suppose you should tell my mother we’re going to need a few extra hours before dinner.” He set his book on the porch. “Looks like we have work to do.”
For the next hour, Col dug trenches into the land, Amalee eroded the gravel, Sky sprinkled some of the nutrient-rich soil from the pots in the courtyard, and Fisher supplied the water to moisten the dirt. I moved in behind them to see what I might grow, hoping I hadn’t entirely depleted my magic from working all day.
