I took another deep breath, willing the fragrances of Maisri’s garden oasis to soothe the jagged edges of my soul. “It is the middle of the night.”
Arran lingered in the shadow of the archway—this one blooming with the primrose. My heart clenched.
“I knew you were getting closer,” he said. “I could feel it—here.” He touched his chest—his heart.
I knew. I felt it too. “Are you going to ask where I went?”
“Would you tell me if I did?”
“I don’t know.” I could be honest about that, at least.
But everything else… I was so fucking tired. Screaming at the Ancestors hadn’t helped. Neither had refusing my impulse to invoke their name. Maybe sleep would. I started for the spiral staircase at the opposite corner, the one that would lead me past that awful carving, then up to the relative safety of my bedroom.
“Veyka, it cannot go on like this between us.” Ancestors, his voice… it was tortured. Is that what I sounded like?
“Like what?” No. I sounded worse.
Arran pushed out of the archway. Closer—dangerously close. I could hear his heart hammering in his chest. Or was that mine?
“This—dancing around one another. Pulling closer, then apart again. It is… I can see it tearing you apart.” He stared at my chest as if he could see the heart and soul within, see the damage.
But I was not the only one who was damaged. “And what about you?”
His answer was immediate. “I want you to be happy.”
I shook my head. “What about you?”
“What I want does not matter.”
“You are afraid.” I’d already admitted I was. For some reason, I needed to hear him say it too. No matter what happened, how this conversation or the next one or the next one,I would go on, because Annwyn needed me. But I wanted to know how he felt. Needed it, or I might suffocate.
I grabbed his shoulder, the contact sizzling up my arm.Tell me.
His eyes started to burn. “Yes, Veyka,” he growled. “I love you, and I am afraid of what that means. I am afraid that it will not be enough for you because it is not what we had before, and that it will break you, and I just…” He broke off, looking at my face, my eyes, the sky. Searching for words.
Words that I had. “Annwyn needs me.”
Arran’s eyes jerked back to me. This time, he grabbed my shoulders, shaking me hard. “I needyou. I need you whole and flashing that wicked smile and meaning it. I love you, Veyka. Annwyn can die in darkness, if that is what it costs for you to be safe and happy.”
Oh, Ancestors. Fucking Ancestors.
My insides were melting.
“Some of us aren’t meant to be happy,” I rasped. Arran did not let me go. So I eased myself out of his grip. Closer to the stairs.
I love you.
He was right to be afraid. I was afraid too—afraid to give in to those words again, to risk losing him again… knowing that I would have to pull myself up again for the good of my fucking kingdom.
I had not stopped loving him for a single second. I never would. Somehow, I would have to figure out how to save my kingdom, help Arran through this torment, and keep myself standing. Tomorrow, I would tell him and the others about the witch. Tomorrow, I would start building back my life, brick by brick. But tonight, I was just tired.
I waited until there was plenty of cold air between us before speaking again. “I am leaving in the morning.”
Arran’s eyes darkened. “Wherever you are going, I am going too.” His muscles were so tense, the outline of his body rigid. But he held his ground and did not advance. Not physically, anyway. “I love you.”
I could not have stopped the words, not in a thousand years. “I love you more.”
I turned to go up the staircase before he could see the tears burning in my eyes.
