Tomorrow, she decided, she would hate him. Tomorrow, she would use threats and ultimatums and call his claim to the throne false. But for now, she let herself love this idea of him for the last time.
When she was sure he wasn’t awake any longer, she pressed a hand to his chest, feeling every steady beat of his heart. Tears dampened his shirt when she shut her eyes, and, silently, she confessed the one truth she would never speak aloud.
You were wrong to say you have never been loved. I love you. I love you so much, it’s destroying me.
Chapter
Nine
Peace. Cion loves to use that word. Some of it is her pride, I think, to remind me she was the one who created it. Certainly, she shares the credit, but the true burden was borne by two gods, heirs who looked like newborn stars as they disappeared in fire before my eyes all those years ago.
—Lady Anabeth, Consort to Her Majesty Cion Livii, Queen of Aren, D’anna
Nya.
The voice floated to her across a void filled with sparkling constellations. Every single burning, dying star was tended to by her. The light they were formed of was not warm, rather, so cold, it hurt as she cradled one against her chest. Someday, she would take a single breath, and when she blew it out, all of them would extinguish in a silent, empty supernova.
Vaguely, she knew she was dreaming, because this place was familiar. It was where she had gone nearly every night of her childhood, and it was where Varax had found her four years ago, staring at the deepest, darkest part of the void for just a little toolong, wondering what would happen if she reached for it, just as she was doing now.
Perhaps it would be for the best if she let go, emptied out the magic she had been granted by the gods who had made her, and just disappeared as it returned to the night sky where it belonged.
A quiet death, wreathed in fire.
Nya. Nya.Nya!
The voice was more insistent now, almost irritating in its repetition. She sighed softly, her fingertips dancing over velveteen darkness. A slip of fate; that was all she was. Death was her destiny, and it would be the finale in a circle that had beenturning, turning, turningever since Nyx had refused to marry the king.
Nya, please.
Oh, but that voice…
It made her hesitate, caused her to cling to another thread of fate, this one still wound tightly within the circle of tragedy and loss but steeped in the promise that she was not alone in her destiny. Shecouldignore it. She could have ignored it many times now, but, just like all the times before, she caved, allowing the fear of loneliness to weaken her.
All she had to do, all sheeverhad to do, was turn around, and he was there, pulling her away from the void that might save him, if he only let her go.
Her eyes flew open, and she heard someone very close to her murmur, “Shh…I know, I know. You’re alright.”
She touched her own face to find her cheeks damp with unnaturally cold tears. Her body was trembling and aching, as ifshe had just run a long distance, and her heart was racing, the uneven, harried beats making her breath catch.
Waking up like this was not unfamiliar. She’d had nightmares since childhood, had often woken in a panic, though she never remembered what they were about. When she was small, her parents would rush in and soothe her, but as she grew, she learned to deal with the aftermath alone. Except she he wasn’t alone now, and it took her a moment to remember why.
“I’m still here,” she muttered, sweeping her gaze around Morgen’s room before sitting straight in the bed.Hisbed, where she had slept next to him all night, while he was drunk off his own magic.
“It’s alright,” he said, and she finally faced him as he scrubbed a hand over her jaw. “My mind is sane again.”
She glanced at him, remembering all the times she had wondered what it would be like to wake up with him.
“You were acting like you smoked alotof gardroot,” she finally settled on.
She had once tried to convince him to try the plant with her, which he had blatantly refused. She had smoked it only once, just before she left Mise for D’anna, and had cried for hours straight in a mind-haze and then fallen asleep on the floor.
He lifted a shoulder, his shrug nonchalant and his voice flat when he said, “I’m sure I was. And I’m going to assume Carus explained why?”
“He did.”
“Good, then. You need to?—”
“Why?”
