But it has. Everything has changed.
‘What are you doing here, Kyor?’ I snap. ‘You made your choice.’
His eyes flash. ‘And I’d make the same one again. I know you can’t understand it, Rose, but there is more at play than you know. Far more. Even for you, I cannot defy my father.’
No, of course not. He’s made that perfectly clear. And yet he seems intent on making me relive the pain of our revocation again.
‘Then why are you here? Your father will never approve of me, and you will never defy him. As you made it so eminently clear, we’re done.’
‘We will never be done.’ He takes a step towards me, and I can feel the static buzzing in the air between us. Static that he rolled over my skin time and time again. Static that I know I shouldrun from. ‘You and I are as inevitable as the rising sun. Tell me that you did not feel it as we danced together.’
‘I didn’t,’ I snarl, pushing away the delicious sensation of his magic that threatens to consume me. ‘All I felt was my broken fucking heart. We’re not inevitable. Just because you can spout pretty lines, it doesn’t change anything between us. We’re done. So done. A relationship needs trust, and I sure as fuck don’t trust you now.’
I hate the words falling from my lips, but they’re true. I deserve someone whom I trust with unfaltering certainty. Someone whom I know will fightfor me. For us.
And evidently, that man isn’t Kyor Knavin.
As his jaw twitches, he folds his arms across his chest. ‘We’ll rebuild it. We can. What we have is real.’
‘How?’ The word bursts from me with such force that even Elska flinches. ‘How can it be real? You lied to me, Kyor. YoulovedThea! You loved her, and you lied about it. You lied to my face.’
He grimaces. ‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Really? Because it’s pretty fucking simple from where I’m standing.’
I don’t want to be having this conversation. I don’t want him here, muddling my already addled thoughts.
And yet he’s not leaving and I can’t draw myself away from him. Even now. Even with my heart torn out and trampled, I can’t walk away from him.
‘The Thea I knew …’ he starts. ‘The Thea I planned to marry, she?—’
‘You planned to marry her?’ A gasp flies from me, almost loud enough to muffle the sound of my heart breaking all over again.
With pursed lips, he rubs his hand along the back of his neck.
‘I thought I loved her. Truly.’ A wistful gaze crosses his expression. ‘This fierce, strong woman who wrote music, just like my mother once did. I thought we had a connection. We liked the same foods, the same drinks, and the same dances. It was all I hoped to find in someone. And so I picked out three rings for her.’
Tears fill my eyes. I need him to stop. If any part of him ever loved me, then I do not understand why he would keep speaking, pulling me apart word by word.
And yet he doesn’t stop.
‘Then, two days before I intended to propose, Leilah caught one of the serving girls spiking my drink.’
‘What?’ I say, unable to help myself.
‘Zelle was the one who questioned her. It didn’t take much for her to break. The maid confessed that the king had ordered her to do it – to spike my drink with an infatuation potion.’
I gape despite myself. Such abhorrent magic is illegal throughout Morathka. Luckily, the ingredients are rare. But I suppose nothing is too rare for a king.
As my mind tries to slot the pieces of the story together, my thoughts can’t help but wander to the maid. I have no doubt she suffered more than just Zelle’s interrogation when the king found out she had been caught. The thought makes me shudder.
‘It turned out that Thea and my father had conspired together. He wanted me to settle down and establish the next heir for the security of Morathka, and when I told him I wasn’t ready, he took things into his own hands. Told Thea things – things about Mother – that she used to form a connection with me. So yes, I told her I loved her, and yes, I believed it, but it was all based on lies and potions.’
My heart is pounding and part of me is desperate for this all to be revealed as a fabrication. Because if it’s not … I sniff back the tears that threaten to fall, though for once they’re not for me.
Kyor’sownfatherhelped to drug him and tried to force him into a marriage he truly didn’t want. That’s foul by anyone’s standards.
But it doesn’t change the fact that Kyor never told me about Thea. That heactivelylied about their relationship. Trust doesn’t work like that.
