She interprets my awkward stammering and waves a hand, laughing. “Yuck, no. It’snotlike that between us. We kissed one time as teenagers and were both thoroughly repulsed off it for good. It was like licking a shoe. I like women, actually.”
Wow.
Obsessing over their relationship has taken up so much mental space, and I could’ve justasked her.
“Guess you were right,” I admit begrudgingly to Anassa.
“You have learned wisdom about some things and not others,” Anassa helpfully responds.
“And I suppose you absolutely could not have told me at any point that they weren’t interested in each other? Too much idle human gossip for you?”
Anassa lets me feel her amusement.“Oh, no, I just enjoyed watching you ruminate in circles. It was endearingly unreasonable.”
Mangy bitch.
I offer Noemi my hand, and we both drop our smiles, remembering that there’s a Siphon king outside that door who likely wants Noemi’s head for what she’s done.
As if in answer to our thoughts, there’s a banging at the door.
“Time’s up,” comes Lucien’s voice, sing-song yet somehow also deadly.
Hopefully, he’ll be open to a solution. Because I’m not going to let Noemi be killed for what she did, no matter how grievous an error it was.
If Lucien wants Noemi dead, he’s going to have to go through me first.
38
MERYN
It takes begging, and a little bit of humiliation for all of us, to get Lucien to accept Noemi’s apology. Eventually, he relents and sends us all off to bed. I can tell he’s going to hold this one over me, though.
He seems like the kind of person who enjoys having an upper hand.
Stark and I collapse into the bed in my room, and I expect sleep to take me quickly after all the events of the day.
It doesn’t, though. There’s too much on my mind.
The thrall bracelet and everything I’ve learned about the Siphons. The possible alliance with Astreona, and what Lucien might gain from it. The Tears.
My thoughts keep returning to the Goddess Tears. How did Lucien and I end up with matching jewels in our crowns? Something about it feels very much by design.
And then back to Killian.
I’m going to need all the power I can get if I’m going up against him, if Alistair is as strong as Lucien claims.
Which then brings me full circle back to the Tears, and the one hanging around my sister’s neck.
At some point, the sun rises, and I’ve still barely slept. A finger traces my jaw.
“Something is bothering you,” Stark says.
How long has he been watching over me as I tossed and turned? I curl closer to him.
“I think I need the Tear that Saela is wearing,” I whisper. I wish I could bottle the peace of this moment, vulnerable but safe in his arms. “The Tear in my crown made me so much more powerful on the battlefield, and when I put the necklace on for that brief moment at the war camp, I felt it amplifying my power, too. But…”
“It’s protecting Saela,” Stark supplies.
I fiddle with the button on his shirt. “I can’t let Killian’s influence reach her, but I need that power if we’re going to defeat him. Before we left the front, Ruby said there were ways to block the sire bond.”
