"If this were my choice, I would take you and run." Her voice was barely above a whisper, but the words sounded like an echo in my ears.
I watched her reflection. The way her eyes burned with helpless fury, the way her hands trembled slightly as she set down the pot of cosmetics.
"Running isn't an option, Emabelle. You know that.” I kept my voice calm and logical, an attempt to seem like I was fine. “This marriage protects all of us. It keeps Mother safe, keeps Grandmother safe, keepsyousafe."
I understood they were worried about me, but I was terrified for them, too.
If Thayden could treat me—someone he professed to love—like a punching bag, what would he do to my family? I could imagine him threatening me with their lives every time I did something that displeased him.
It’d be no way to live. But the alternative was worse.
Emabelle met my gaze in the mirror, her reflection fierce and uncompromising. "At what cost?" she challenged. The question hung in the air between us like frosted breath in winter air. "At what cost, Elariya?"
“It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. Thayden will…” I was going to say that maybe he’ll get better once we got married, but I knew that was a lie. “I’ll just have to deal with him. He’s acting like more of a prick because he knows about Wolfe.”
He knew—or at least he guessed—that I’d lost my virginity to Wolfe. And he hated it.
“The only reason he hasn’t done worse,” I murmured, “is because he thinks Wolfe is dead.”
For now.
How long would that illusion hold?
If Wolfe had been right—if the dark forces truly used Thayden to reach him—then the truth would surface eventually. And if not that way, then another. Nelkaraad did business with Galaythia. Trade routes, envoys, correspondence.
A crown prince does not simply die without word.
Sooner or later, someone would notice the absence of mourning.
And when Thayden realized Wolfe still lived…
The thought turned my blood cold.
I assumed Wolfe and the guys had already thought about those things. It was logical. They would have had a plan, too, but they’d kept me in the dark. I couldn’t complain about that either.
Emabelle's hands moved to straighten the shoulders of my gown, her touch gentle.
"You haven't spoken about him.Wolfe," she said quietly. "You told us you got him back. But that’s it. You were gone for almost a week, and you haven’t even spoken about the magical realm. The place you always dreamed of visiting."
I’d explained what happened at Morgäven and the Land of the Dead but nothing more. The rest was too difficult to talk about.
I watched her in the mirror, saw the way she was trying to read my expression for any hint of what I'd experienced in those days I was gone. Everyone had been walking on eggshells around the subject since I'd returned. Like they were afraid to ask what had changed me. What, or who, hurt me besides Thayden. What had happened to leave me looking like a piece of myself had been carved away.
"There isn't much more to say," I replied. It was best I didn’t talk about any of it. What good would it do?
But Emabelle met my gaze in the mirror with those perceptive eyes that had always seen straight through any facade I tried to maintain.
“You look like you have a lot to say.”
“There’s no point. I’m here now.” I turned away from the mirror, unable to hold her searching gaze any longer.
“You look like you’re grieving. I don’t mean the whole Thayden thing. I mean for Wolfe. And whatever life you left behind.”
Nothing could have been truer. I looked up at her and sighed. “It’s complicated.”
She chuckled. “I’m Emabelle Grayson,the queen of complicated. There’s nothing I won’t understand.” She looked me over. “I hate your curse. I hate this shit your father has put us through. But I don’t hate that you got to meet someone who clearly meant something to you. And look, you don’t even remember him, and you still feel something.”
That mantra about not understanding my feelings had faded. Now I was feeling something else, something new to me. Sure, there was still confusion, but not as much.
