“Supper,” I say with a shrug. “Of all the hardworking husbands out there, I’d expect you to be the most eager to come home to rest your bones.”
That curve straightens, banishing all bemusement from his features. “What do you want, Elara?”
“Who says I want anything?”
“Oh, please, do you truly believe I know my wife so little?” Vale pushes himself off the trunk. He takes one slow step forward, yet remains under the oak’s dark shelter. “You only ever become this chatty when you think you’ve already won the argument,” he says, his voice a low, dry rasp that makes the fine hairs on my arms stand up. “That treacherous little smile of yours? We both know it’s a taunt. So, I’m asking again before I get bored and converse with the dead instead…what do you want?”
Whatever nerves are starting to drum against my esophagus, I swallow down. “I want to see you.”
Vale’s eyes flicker. “You see me.”
“The real you.” I inch closer, careful not to step into the tree’s shadow, careful to keep the moon between us. “Show me Death.”
Vale’s gaze flicks to the bright clearing, then back to me, displeasure tightening his jaw. “We’ve had this conversation.” He turns away, shadows seemingly melting into his black breeches. “I have no time for our marital disputes as if?—”
“It’s not a dispute!” I call behind him, pulse quickening in my wrists. “It’s a demand for a wish.”
His boot halts mid-lift, stalling there for a second before he spins back around, a black strand settling wild across his forehead with how his gaze tilts. “I beg your pardon?”
“Assuming that…” I say slowly, testing the words, the sharp edge of their risk, “that my first wish was based merely on yourassumptionof having been fooled…” My breath fogs into the cold. “…what would happen to the wish I made?”
Vale’s eyes narrow. “Elaborate.”
The word is clipped. Demanding.
I keep my face calm, even as my pulse begins to thunder. It’s a gamble. A terrifying, irrevocable gamble. Sure, having fooled him by going along with his assumption buys me a wish, but what if admitting that I never plotted with Kael renders my marriage null and void?
My throat narrows.
Well, then I’ll simply use the leverage of this second wish to demand our marriage remains intact. It won’t get me any closer to breaking the curse, true, but I won’t let myself lose my footing, either.
It is a lateral move at worst.
A checkmate at best.
I take a breath, letting the cold air brace me. “If I told you that I never plotted my coronation with Kael. If I told you that…that he ripped me from under the table that morning and simply shoved the knife into my hand with the plea to kill him, without me understanding why. Would that void my last wish? Our marriage?”
The silence of the woods is heavy for a long, terrifying moment. The air pressure drops, popping in my eardrums.
He exhales at the speed of a maggot crossing a grave. “So you’re a liar, same as me?”
“I didn’t lie.” Not entirely. “You simply voiced what you wanted to hear, and I didn’t correct you.”
“Is that so?” he bites out. “And now you’re here, testing whether you can wring another wish out of me?”
My muscles tense. “Answer my question.”
Vale’s mouth curves, sharp and bitter. “You want me to say no.”
“I want you to tell me the truth.”
His nostrils flare. The tendons in his neck strain against his collar, and I watch him grind his molars with enough force to crack stone. I brace myself, waiting for the fury, waiting for the whiplash of his temper.
But the eruption never comes.
Instead, he shuts his eyes tight, shaking his head slowly as if to himself. When his lashes lift again, the fire in his gaze isn’t aiming to scorch me. It’s burning inward.
He isn’t furious that I fooled him.
