I can’t help it—I clamp my fingers over my mouth, moved beyond speech. “I—I don’t…”
His eyes dim, his hold on me slackening. “Right. It’s…sorry. Never mind. I shouldn’t have said that. You’re free to use my gyre, if you want.”
“Your gyre?”
He grunts. “Yes. It’s in my pocket, on the floor. Take it and go home. Transport back to Aethrolia. You know how to use it, by now.”
The words drop into me like a boulder into a well, summoning a violent eruption of feeling. He’s letting me go? Letting me gofree?
“But…” That one word burns up all my breath, and I have to gulp down more before continuing. “What about the Claiming?”
His eyes return to mine. The glow there has died, and I can’t help but feel responsible. “The Claiming is only as good as my enforcement of it. I’m allowed to relinquish my rights. Give up what the treaty has granted me.”
“But why would you do that?”
His lips press together. And I know that he won’t say it, that hecan’t. That even if I lie here all night, waiting, not a single word of apology or love will pass his lips.
“Because…” he starts, then trails off. He blinks back the flicker of emotion in his face, glances at the ceiling for a few moments before continuing. When he speaks again, gravel roughens his voice. “The treaty was never really about that. I only asked for my mate so that when I found you, I could force you into the labyrinth. Because I thought I would hate you. That I’d detestanyheir of Alanna’s. Only…I don’t. As it turns out.”
Such a simple statement, and yet the pause that follows almost gives the impression that he’s said something else,admittedsomething else.
“I…” My voice fractures around the edges. “I have to think about this. I need time.” Because right now, I don’t know a single thing, still too dizzy to feel my way toward any kind of truth.
“That’s fine,” he says, but I can tell he’s already resigned himself to my answer, because his jaw hardens to steel.
“Can I have until tomorrow? To decide?”
“Of course. But in that case, I just have one last question.”
I inch toward him. “Which is?”
“Could I show you what I believe in again?”
My eyes flare, my mouth opening, but he fills the pause before I can.
“It’s just…if you’re only here until tomorrow, I want to spend that time doing what I believe in. You know. Worshiping. Or whatever you Aethrolians call it.”
Silence rings through the room, the air thick with all he’s holding back, with the unsaid confessions hanging between us.
“Amriel…”
“Just don’t wake me up,” he says gruffly. “All right? When you go. Don’t say goodbye. Just let me sleep. Let menot knowfor a little while longer.”
I flinch. Good goddess, he might as well have fashioned the words into a stake and driven it through my chest. I blink madly, battling the tears that try to hurl themselves down my cheeks.
I want so badly to ease his torment, but I can’t promise to stay. To abandon my future, my home. I’m too fragile, too raw, and after what we just did, I feel like a blank slate inside, a story waiting to be written.
The only question is…which one?
I don’t know.
I don’tknow.
“Kiss me,” I manage, between tumultuous breaths.
His eyes change, taking on a depth that almost scares me. But he does as I ask. His hand sweeps up to cup my jaw, and he kisses me with all the longing and dread one man can hold, with all the words he can’tbring himself to say. Instead, he writes each one with the desperation of his mouth against mine.
Before I know it, I’m underneath him, my legs instinctively parting, my arms threading around his neck as he sinks into me all over again.
