“I’ve a proposition.”
He stares at me, chewing. “I’m listening.”
I set my fork and knife aside and thread my fingers together, elbows on the table. “I’ve come up with an alternative plan to get what I need from the Summerlands. Something that doesn’t require using you as bait.”
Colden raises his brows. “Fleurie, obviously.”
“She’s part of it. A large part of my men in Malgros don’t succeed at finding Alexi and Raina Bloodgood. But there’s more.”
A glint of worry flashes in his eyes. “And that is?”
“A focus on control. On power. To finally begin uniting this broken empire.”
He blinks at me. “You realize that it’s only broken in physical form, the division of land from natural forces a very long time ago. Any other brokenness has come at your hand and the hand of Thamaos and his many kings.”
I take a deep breath. “Sometimes I envy your wholesomeness.”
He almost chokes on his wine. “I’ve been called many things, but never wholesome. However, I think you mean goodness, and those are two different things.”
I shrug. “I only mean that you see things so simply.”
“I imagine you did too at one time. Before you let Thamaos dig his evil claws into your brain.” He matches my pose, resting his arms on the table, threading his lovely, slender fingers, leaning in. “I bet you were brilliant and beautiful and everything a man like me would want,” he says, his voice low and soft over the crackling fire burning in the hearth. “I feel like I see that man inside your eyes sometimes. I saw him thirty years ago. But he’s certainly just a ghost now, isn’t he?”
Slowly, I shake my head. “He’s no ghost. He’s still in there. He’s just been buried, but you are slowly bringing him back to life. He wants you, Colden. He just also wants to unite these lands. Something we could do together.”
Colden’s eyes are dark and shimmering, as though they contain the night and all the stars. “Is that your proposition? Because understand that we would not go about such a thing the same way,” he says. “You want to reign over lands that do not want or need your control. I want everyone to live as they so desire.”
I narrow my eyes. “That’s why you forced people to enlist in your Northland Watch? To leave their homes and shield your kingdom? Is that not how you just described me? Perhaps we’re more similar than you’d like to admit.”
He laughs, the sound warm and deep. “I am a terrible king. I will never deny that. It isn’t a job I wanted. It was cast upon me, and I have remained steadfast. Our lands have maintained neutrality through centuries of war, especially these last thirty years. There are systems in place that allow us to have some semblance of control and order and protection, but ultimately, until you broke King Regner’s treaty, my people have been safe from worrying about you or your army. It might not have been enough for all, but it was the best I knew how to give them.”
I study him, a three-hundred-year-old man trapped in perpetual youth. We are similar, only I’m much uglier on the inside.
“Think about it,” I tell him. “There’s a little time. But things are about to change here, and war with Fia Drumera will eventually be something I face unless she chooses to finally stand down. I would very much like to have you at my side. Even Alexi, if he will cooperate.”
More laughter bursts from Colden as he tosses back his blond head. “The day that Alexus Thibault sets foot on this soil with any other purpose than to bring your end will be the day the sun falls from the sky. He would never serve you willingly, much less power you through whatever ridiculousness you’re planning. And I won’t be at your side, either. You might no longer be willing to lose me to Asha’s curse in the Summerlands because we both know that Fia would have to let me die, but that doesn’t mean you win my heart. You want everything at the cost of nothing, and unfortunately, life does not work that way. To play with the side of the right, you must be on the side of the right. And world domination, or even Tiressian domination, is not that side.” He shucks his napkin at his plate and stands, stepping away from the table. “I want to go back to my prison cell, oh kind prince. I’ve had enough shite for one night.”
I stand and, after a moment of hesitance, cross the short distance between us and look into his eyes. I see anger, but I also see frustration and disappointment.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” I say.
He scoffs and shakes his head, his brows lifted. “No. It doesn’t.”
I move closer, and he doesn’t budge, but his eyes rove over my face, and I can sense the urge in him that he’s trying so hard to deny. It makes my heart beat harder, faster.
“You’re right. I want the impossible.” I trace my thumb over his full bottom lip, and I don’t miss the breath that leaves him at my touch. “This is all going to end soon. You will probably hate me when it does, but I will return you to Winterhold if that’s what you want. You have one final role to play, and I’m not even certain what it is, but I won’t let any harm come to you.”
“No harm?” he says. “Not certain I believe you. You hated me weeks ago.”
“I never hated you.” I swallow thickly, my throat constricting around my words, some dark part of me trying to control my honesty. But if he hears nothing else tonight, I need him to hear this. “I wanted you,” I tell him. “And I knew I could not have you. I left you alone for thirty years because of that, even when my general insisted that I invade the North and make use of your Witch Walkers. I hated that you were the pawn Thamaos required me to collect. That it was your land I had to destroy. I had to go into the darkest part of myself and let that man reign just so I could manage it. It killed me that you were the man I had to lock in my dungeon, when all I’ve wanted since that night we kissed was for you to be the man at my side and in my bed. I wanted your heart, and yet I had your disgust. I wanted your affection, yet I had your loathing. I wanted you, and yet I had loneliness.”
“More’s the pity,” he says, his face hard, his jaw clenching. “You could’ve refused Thamaos. Or is his poison truly that deep in your veins? Has he scrambled your mind that thoroughly from the grave?” He pauses and studies me. “Perhaps you should consider why Thamaos made me the requirement. Was it truly to bring down Fia if you can so easily discard me as a tool in this game?” He tilts his head. “Or is he fooling you? Is he preparing to test your loyalty?”
“He knows nothing about you and me. I would never reveal that.”
His brow wrinkles. “Why not? You were already prepared to end me.”
“That was before you were here. Before I had to see your face nearly every day. Hear your voice. Your crude jokes. That laugh that infuriated me until I couldn’t sleep for hearing it. It was before I watched you move naked across a room, before I saw you stare at me from a bath, before I saw you smile a genuine smile, before you entranced me all over again, you bastard.”
