“Thessa called you Vulcan’s heir.”
A laugh broke out of him. “That’s impossible. Heirs of principals need to be named.”
“Was I named?” she asked before she could stop herself.
His face softened a fraction. “Yeah, when you were a youngling. You told me the dress you had to wear was scratchy, and that it was the first time you met Kronos.”
“Oh.” She rubbed at her face. “I hate that I can remember so little.”
“It’ll return in time,” he assured her. “And if it doesn’t, I’ll remind you every day.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat and blinked rapidly at the burning in her eyes. “Maybe Vulcan hasn’t named you yet for a reason.”
Vane snorted. “Even if there was a chance he would have before, he won’t now. I’m an exiled traitor, remember? Kronos put me under a curse tied to a mortal bloodline and closed off Arcadia because of what I did.”
“What we did,” she reminded him quietly.
His gaze dropped to their hands resting on the dusty stone floor. “If you had never met me, none of this would have happened.”
“You’re right,” she said. “And I would also be married to an abusive tyrant, probably popping out godlings and trying to find a way to keep them safe from him.”
Vane’s mouth tightened, but the look on his face turned distant, his eyes wandering somewhere behind her. She reached out, touching his face. “Vane?”
He cleared his throat. “I know. As far as Vulcan goes, I wouldn’t expect anything from him. I never have, and I’ve never been disappointed because of that.”
She tilted her head. He still wasn’t really looking at her. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”
He was silent for a long moment, and she could practically see his mind working. Heat emanated from him, and she was about to push again when he said, “We had four days after we were wed. Two of them, we spent here, and two of them, we spent apart. But the day before Kronos came for me, Ana showed up in the field where I was working and punched me in the face—well, tried to. Once she’d calmed down and stopped cursing me, she told me she’d had a vision.”
He paused, and Soren’s stomach turned with unease. “What did she see?”
A short breath escaped him. “Ana punched me because she thought you were with child and we didn’t tell her. She thought I was putting you in danger, that we needed to run…” He trailed off. “I knew that wasn’t the case, or I thought I was sure it wasn’t.”
“Vane, what did she see?” Her heart was pounding so loud and fast, she wondered if he could hear it.
He finally looked at her as he said, “The future. You and I, with a youngling.” Anguish pierced his terse expression as he added, “I’ve never been sure I was wrong to deny her anger that day.”
Soren’s eyes widened as she realized what he meant. But she shook her head slowly, cradling his cheek in her palm. Tears ran down his face, and she swiped them away.
“I wouldn’t have kept something like that from you,” she whispered.
“So you weren’t?—”
“No.”
His entire body shuddered, curving in on itself as silent sobs wracked him. “All these years,” he gasped. “I didn’t know.He made meburn your body.”
He said the last six words, nearly void of breath as he struggled to take in air. She pulled him close to her, threading her hands in his hair and murmuring, again and again, “I’m sorry, I know.”
When a few minutes had passed and he was breathing steadily again, she whispered, “What are we going to do?”
Vane lifted his head, looking around the cavern. “There is something. I thought of it once you’d begun remembering, but selfishly, I didn’t even want to consider it.”
She looked at him expectantly.
“Arcadia’s borders are closed to mortals. Evidently, Ana and I can’t cross the veil without consequence. But you could…” He shook his head, as if he didn’t even want to consider it.
But she finished for him. “I could just walk right in, couldn’t I?”
