I was a fool, one who’d forgotten the most important rule of lying. Don’t believe your own deception.
Broadworthy hesitated. “Some still believe she’s enchanted you.”
“And you?”
He met my gaze. “If so, I believe you let her.”
I didn’t answer.
He inclined his head and left, striding down the hall, turning the corner, and disappearing from view.
I stepped inside our chambers. When the door shut, I walked around, not finding her inside the suite. Leaning against a wall, I exhaled slowly. The room felt colder without her magic floating in the air.
In the bathing room, I stripped off my coat, staring at the golden dust clinging to the sleeve where she’d grabbed me. It caught the light, as fragile as frost.
I brushed it away, but it didn’t fade.
Her joy magic didn’t obey rules. It clung, lingered, and insisted on being felt.
Just like my wife.
After dressing in formal clothing, wishing they were any color but black, I poured a glass of bloodwine and sank into the chair by the bedroom window. The first sip tasted flat. The flavor of her still lingered on my tongue, ruining me for everything else.
I’d spent years convincing myself I’d forgotten her. That the girl at the fair had been a memory, a dream sweetened by time. The woman who’d walked down the aisle to marry me had bristled with defiance. After all this time, she should’ve felt like a stranger.
Yet she was still sunlight in human form, and I craved the light.
When she kissed me, every lie I’d told myself turned to dust.
I wanted her. Not as a queen. Not as a political convenience. Asher. And that was dangerous because I didn’t get to want things. I’d built my life on necessity, not desire. Cravings made kings weak.Desire made fools of men—so my advisors had drilled into me from the moment I took my father’s crown and placed it on my head.
I could still feel her lips on mine. Still taste the spark of her magic where it had seeped into me, bright as blood and sweet as sin.
The absurdity of my position wasn’t lost on me. I’d spent six years convincing myself I’d done the right thing in leaving her without a word. But I’d missed her. So when her grandmother reached out, and I’d discovered it was Cyrene, I’d agreed to a political marriage. And now I was brooding because she’d kissed me too convincingly.
If my father could see me now, he would either laugh or despair. Probably both.
I finished the glass and set it aside.
Tomorrow, I’d deal with the council. I’d find a way to control the narrative. I’d remind Cyrene of boundaries, of decorum, of the difference between survival and scandal.
Tonight, I’d sit here and remember what it felt like to be alive.
And I’d admit, at least to myself, that the taste of her joy magic still burned on my tongue.
Cyrene was utterly addictive.
I wasn’t upset that she’d kissed me.
I was terrified by how much I wanted her to kiss me again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CYRENE
If I could’ve crawled into a hole in the flagstones and stayed there until the next century, I would have. Unfortunately, the upper terrace was made of ancient marble, and the only thing that yielded under my shoes was my pride.
Cordelia had already pretended to faint twice.
