“Sylaira. I Saw it. I Saw the end.”
“No,” I sobbed, tears flowing like a rainstorm down my cheeks. “I can’t See. I can’t See. I can’t See. Please, don’t make me See, Vaeron. I will die.”
“While I am around, you will not. I will not fail you.” The conviction in his tone was a lifeline. I clung to it while he whispered more words of affirmation inmy mind and in my ear.
Until finally, the traumatic memories loosened their grip.
Until finally, the ache in my soul eased.
Until finally, the breaking was over.
58
Heat skimmed my shoulder, tugging me back from a tormented slumber. Blinking, I found moonlight spilling through the curtains of Vaeron’s sleeping chamber. And his hard body molded perfectly to mine.
Phantom whispers of my trauma lingered, curling beneath too-tight skin, lungs refusing to rise.
Stadiel towering over me, hand gripped over the white well in my chest. His fingers becoming my master, controlling me like a puppeteer.
“It was just a dream,” Vaeron whispered against my ear.
How desperately I wished that were the case. That Heraphia still lived. That I hadn’t witnessed further horrors at the hands of the Angel monarchs mere hours before.
“It’s my life that’s the nightmare,” I murmured, sarcastic and bitter.
He huffed a laugh against myskin. But it was hollow, forced, like he was trying to distract me from the terrors that continued to pile up around me.
I wriggled deeper into his embrace, wishing I could close my eyes and sleep until winter. Until the next summer. Until the ache in my heart was no longer.
“Keep that up and we won’t make it outside to see the moon before the trial,” he rasped, his erection stiffening against my back.
Shuffling around, I faced him. “The moon?”
“Tonight is the Goddess Moon,” he told me. “In Sivy, we don’t quite celebrate it like we do in my svaethi, since our crops are seasonal and depend on our Radiant Mother’s blessing.”
“What would we be doing if we were there?” I asked him. Because I wanted to drift to somewhere else, somewhere joyous melodies filled the air instead of herbal smoke.
The corner of his mouth twitched up. “The farmers would gather in their villages, burning offerings to the Goddess for a plentiful harvest. Children would dance and sing. We’d ride from town to town for days, offering blessings over fields. We’d even get our hands dirty, digging potatoes out of the ground. Pick beans off their vines. Pull chard from the earth.”
“But never force them to give us their food,” I added, remembering that the people of his svaethi—our svaethi—did not pay tithes.
Something flashed through his expression before he smoothed it away.
“No,” I protested, reaching up and cupping his cheeks. “What was that?”
His eyes dipped closed, fanning long lashes against his cheeks. “This year might be different.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. He blew out a long breath. “To feed the army…we might have to take it all.”
Guilt wormed its way down our bond. From the shallowrise and fall of his chest, from the way his fingers tightened against my lower back, I knew that he was at war with himself over the action.
Yet another thing forced upon him by his sister.
“Why not pay them?” I questioned.
He let out a scornful laugh. “You’ve been here for a while now. Seen the opulence. The excess. There’s no golden wings left for the army. Only for gems and statues to flaunt the power of Stadiel and Iaoth.”
Never had Vaeron been this vulnerable with me before. Never had he shared so much of the inner workings of the crown.
My heart ached for all that was placed upon him.
