Chapter
Twenty-Four
Elara
ow!”“N At my command, Kael pulls the edge of the curtain as I lean my weight into the rod above, the two of us tugging in a graceless duet.
The heavy cloth heaves, groans… …then gives all at once.
Sunlight pours through the first unbarred window like a wave, drowning the gloom of Kael’s chamber with a flood of gold that illuminates the swirling dust, finally washing away this damned darkness.
We both flinch.
Kael does so with a hiss and a hard blink. I do it with a laugh, sensing the muscles in my cheeks tense from how hard I grin at the sight before me.
Red-spotted oaks. Deep green pines. A sheen on the far horizon. Maybe the sea?
“The view is beautiful.” I head to the next window, rubbing my palm over my itchy face with how the dust tickles my nostrils. “Next one.”
Kael squints at how I’m maneuvering the wooden ladder to the next spot and take the first rung. “One would think I’m still employing help for these types of things.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” A couple more rungs bring me up to the next rod, where I fumble the iron ring from its hook. “It’s free. Pull!”
“I am pulling,” Kael grunts from the floor, his boots braced against the stone wall, his white shirt straining across his shoulders.
“You’re tugging,” I correct as I wipe sweat from my forehead with my wrist, the air as thick up here as fifty-year-old breath. “Let me give the rings a little shove. That should—”
Iron clinks. Thick velvet drops from the air, and not even the way Kael lifts his arm can fight off the fabric. It spills over his head, his boot catching in a heap of velvet before he stumbles blindly, arms flailing for balance.
“Oh for—hold still.” I quickly step down, grab the velvet, and give a hard yank.
“Do not”—the muffled protest wafts through the fabric, breath hitching when the cloth tugs at the crown—“pull.”
“I’m not pulling; I’m rescuing.” I lift the stubborn fabric free of one of the crown’s points, but it only commits more fondly to another. “It likes
your crown.”
“It has poor taste,” he mutters.
With both hands, I bunch the heavy maroon folds and lift them up and over, a slow unmasking that feels less like housekeeping and more like peeling back a shroud to find a miracle beneath.
The sunlight catches it first, getting tangled in hair that has grown quite a bit since I arrived—thick, honey-gold waves, clearly intent on softening the sharp, noble angles of his high cheekbones. Now his face is flushed with life and exertion, stretching smooth over a jaw broad enough to command armies.
Kael blinks down at me when the velvet drops to his feet. “You found
me.”
For a heartbeat, I forget to breathe.
His eyes aren’t just blue. They’re the color of that deep sea he refuses to visit, clear and startlingly alive, crinkling at the corners as he fights a grimace that digs deep enough to reveal a faint, boyish dimple on his left cheek.
“I guess I did.” Never would I have thought that all this darkness and gauze hid the true sight of a young king from me: tall, well-built, gaining more virility with each day. Aside from that blond lock tangled around a point of his crown, he’s truly good-looking. “You have a…a…” My fingers lift to the strand, trying to untangle it from the metal. “You have a knot there.”
“I have many knots,” he says softly as he holds so very still, each rise of his chest scenting the air with soap and sun-warmed linen. “You seem
determined to undo them all.”
My fingers pause on the crown.
I look up at him.
His face is inches from mine. The humor has drained away, replaced by a quiet, heavy intensity that pulls the air from my lungs. His eyes are searching my face, dropping to my lips, then flicking back up to my eyes with a hesitation that is both sweet and agonizing.
My heart gives a traitorous thud against my ribs, then another when his hand lifts to my waist, warm and large, resting there lightly. He could pull me in. He could close the distance. I can see the want in the flare of his nostrils, in the way his gaze drops to my mouth again.
Eager to kiss me.
And if he kisses me now, I won’t turn. Won’t retreat or run. For once, I have to stay put and let this blossom into the salvation my brother needs.
He clears his throat. His hand slides from my waist as he takes a step back, ducking his head to free the crown from a thread I hadn’t seen.
“Apologies,” he mutters, turning his profile to me, feigning interest in the dust floating in the sunbeam. “I…encroached.”
My hand sinks along with the mood in the room. The spring. My panic.
My retreat.
He thinks I don’t want this kiss, doesn’t he?
Something in my chest tightens and loosens in the same breath. I had built a physical wall between us that night in the spring that he’s too well- bred to ignore. And if I don’t tear it down? Well, then we might as well stay on opposite sides forever.
Daron doesn’t have forever.
I take a breath, stealing courage from the air, and step into the space Kael just vacated. “You didn’t encroach,” I say, my voice steady where my knees feel like water, ready to give and make me plunge. “The night at the spring, I wasn’t appalled, or disgusted, or any of those things. I was just…
nervous.”
He glances at me, wary. “Nervous…”
My hand trembles as I reach out, but I force it to land on his chest, right over his heart. Beneath the linen, the beat is strong, steady.
“I’ve never been with…a man.”
He goes still under my palm. “I see.”
“Nothing about you is appalling.” Whatever rashes and scrapes the rot left behind here and there aren’t even worth the thought. “I did want that kiss.”
And yet my stomach clenches into a cold, hard knot at the prospect of it.
A startling contrast to the heat Vale so expertly ran through me two nights ago with the slide of his tongue, his fingers digging into my flesh as if— Stop it!
The mental command scalds me, sharp with shame and confusion, bringing me back to what truly matters. If Kael won’t bridge this gap with his noble hesitation, then I have to be the one to drag us both across it.
“Do I have permission to kiss you then?” Kael’s voice is a rough
whisper as he stares down at me.
I don’t answer.
Instead, I rise onto my tiptoes.
I press my body against his, soft curves meeting hard lines that appear to broaden more with each day. When our noses brush, I tip my chin. Then, I do the thing that the woman I was last week would never have done, and the woman I am today cannot afford not to.
I kiss him.
I put my mouth to his like a stitch to a seam, and he goes very still the way frightened animals do. The first shift of his lips is so careful it could be a mistake; the second less so.
With a low groan that vibrates against my mouth, he sweeps his arms around me. He gathers me close, not with the crushing force Vale used, but with a desperate sort of reverence. His mouth finally moves against mine, gentle, tasting, sweet.
It’s pleasant, I guess.
It’s…easy.
Emboldened by that fact, I part my lips a fraction more, just as Vale had done, offering access. Then I send the tip of my tongue out to trace the
seam of his lower lip.
The reaction is instant.
Kael shudders against me, a full-body tremor that travels from his chest straight into mine. His hand, hovering respectfully at my waist, suddenly tightens, fingers digging into the fabric of my apron as he pulls me flush
against him.
My belly flutters.
It works. God, it works!
I mimic the slide of Vale’s tongue—a shy sweep that turns bolder when Kael answers it with a groan that rumbles between us. He tastes of nothing but himself now, clean and fragrant, devouring the kiss I’m feeding him like a starving man offered a banquet.
He walks me backward, blindly, eagerly, until my shoulders hit the stone wall beside the window. The impact is solid, jarring a gasp from me that he swallows whole. And then I feel it—the distinct hardness pressing against my stomach through his trousers.
A spike shoots through my veins, sharp and cold.
No, it’s fine. No different than two nights ago. I can handle this.
But then Kael shifts. He doesn’t grind with the arrogant, rhythmic precision of his brother. He presses into me with a chaotic, overwhelming need, his hips canting forward as if he wants to bury himself in me right through our clothes.
He pulls his mouth from mine to dive his face into the crook of my neck, his breath hot and ragged. “I want inside you. God, I’m burning with need.”
The panic I hoped I’d smothered wakes up, clawing at the back of my
throat. What do I do next?
Undo the buttons on his trousers?
Retreat and play coy? No, he’d feel rejected.
Touch him…there?
My throat ties up.
I don’t know how to do that.
Vale stopped before…before this. I don’t know how to touch a man. I don’t know how to move my legs or where to put my hands. What if it hurts? What if I freeze? What if I disappoint him?
A thick swallow.
What if I ruin this?
The pressure of the plan descends on me like a collapsing roof. If I fail here, Daron dies. If I stop this, Kael retreats, and Daron dies. But I have to be the queen. I have to die. I have to…have to… Dammit, I can’t breathe.
The walls of the chamber seem to lurch inward. The sunlight feels too hot, too exposing. Too much. I have to get out. I have to— No!
I can’t reject him, not again. For if I pull away in fear, he’ll retreat into his shell forever. He’ll think he’s a monster, just like Vale said.
I force a swallow past the lump of terror in my throat, praying my voice doesn’t crack when I lay my forehead against his chest, hiding my face.
“The sun,” I gasp, letting my knees buckle just enough to seem faint rather than frigid. “It’s… I’m dizzy. The heat…”
Kael is moving before I even finish the sentence.
He steps back, putting a foot of blessed, cold space between us. The pressure against my stomach vanishes as air rushes back into my lungs.
“The sun.” He sounds frantic, guilt instantly washing away the desire on his face. “Of course. We’ve been working in the glare, and you haven’t eaten since dawn. I…I am an idiot.” He reaches out to steady me, but keeps his touch light, supportive. “Here. Sit.”
I let him guide me to sit on the nearby chair, but it does nothing to calm the confusion whirling in my mind. Why am I like this? Why with him?
Or rather…why not with Vale?
I fan myself a little just to play the part of the fainting maid. The kiss I just gave Kael worked. But it worked because I had a map. Vale had shown me the way, and I had followed it—right up until Kael pressed his hips
against mine.
That’s where the map ends.
A sharp rap echoes from the door.
Kael’s spine snaps straight, the lover vanishing, the king returning in a blink. “Enter.”
The door swings open, and a man in travel-stained leathers stumbles in —a messenger, by the looks of it—clutching a scroll case with a white- knuckled grip, sweat shining on his thick brow. He looks frantic, eyes darting around the room until they land on Kael.
“Your Majesty!” The man bows hastily, nearly tripping over his own boots. “We think we have her! We already sent a new carriage, but—”
His eyes land on me.
The messenger’s mouth snaps shut with an audible click. He looks from me to Kael, sheer panic flaring in his gaze as if he’s walked in on a murder.
Why?
Kael moves with a speed that would be graceless in another man. He crosses the room in three long strides, grabs the man by the shoulder— rather roughly—and yanks him into the corridor.
The door slams shut.
What’s that all about? Have who? Who is her? Mother? It has to be.
Kael promised to bring her here. He sent a carriage. Why would the messenger say they sent a new carriage… Unless something happened to the old one?
A cold prickle of dread races down my spine.
What if the old carriage broke down on a road? Or worse, got attacked.
The city is starving, and desperate men look for anything that might hold bread or coin. If they stopped my family, if they opened the door and found only an old woman and a dying boy… Righteous fear propels me out of the chair. I need to know. I stare at the heavy oak door, straining my ears, but the wood is too thick, the stone too dense. What are they saying? Where is my brother?
Eavesdropping is wrong, but if Kael is hiding a tragedy from me to spare my feelings—or worse, to manage me—then I need to know it now.
I look down at my boots.
Heavy. Loud.
Without a second thought, I toe them off, leaving one abandoned by the chair. The other skids across the boards and stills near the door. In stocking feet, I creep across the room, silent as the dust motes dancing in the sun, and press my ear against the door’s cold, unforgiving wood.
“…village,” comes muffled and torn through the oak. The messenger’s voice. “Not a doubt…heritage…original translation.” Some distorted words I can’t make out follow, and then, “…curse.”
“He must not find out.” Kael’s voice is low, vibrating through the wood, but there’s an undercurrent in it I’ve never heard before—not in his rage, not in his self-pity, certainly not in his gentle moments. It’s cold. Chilling enough that it sends the fine hairs on my arms straight up. But they tingle at the roots when he growls, “The bastard is scheming.”
My breath hitches, freezing in my throat like a shard of glass. The bastard. There’s no doubt who he means. A jolt of pure, cold adrenaline floods my veins, making the floor beneath my stocking feet feel miles away.
Kael knows… He knows Vale is moving pieces in the dark. Does he know that I am one of them?
A wave of nausea rolls through me. If he suspects I’m a trap set by his brother, then that kiss, his hesitation, was all a test. A way to see if the weapon would strike?
No. I felt his heart hammer against my palm, felt the raw, shaking need in his body. You can’t fake a tremble like that.
So he knows Vale is scheming, but perhaps he doesn’t know the shape of the blade? Or maybe he knows something about Vale’s plan that I don’t —another layer of rot hidden beneath the floorboards of this cursed palace.
A heavy thud of boots.
He’s coming back!
Scrambling backwards, I turn and flurry-step across the floorboards, practically throwing myself into the chair just as the iron latch clicks. I grab a nearby water cup, my hand shaking so badly water sloshes over the rim onto my wrist, and bring it to my lips just as the door swings open.
Kael enters. The cold mask is gone, replaced by a strained, visible effort to reassemble the gentle lover he was moments ago. His shoulders are tight, jaw clenched, but when he sees me still sitting where he left me, he forces a breath out through his nose and softens.
“Forgive the interruption,” he says, his voice a little too careful.
“He mentioned a carriage.” Unlikely to be about Mother and Daron, given the other context, but I have to be certain. “My family?”
“No. God, no. Your family should arrive tomorrow. Midday, if your brother can keep his resilience up.” He walks toward me, keeping that respectful distance. “How do you feel? Has the dizziness passed?”
“Yes.” I set the cup down with a clatter I can’t quite prevent. “Much better. The water helped.”
He manages a smile. It’s a weary thing, but it reaches his eyes. “Good. I would not want you to end in a faint.”
“What was it about?” I ask, forcing my voice to sound casual, bored even. “The messenger seemed almost frightened.”
Kael’s smile doesn’t falter, but his gaze drops. It slides from my face, down my dress, and lands on my stocking feet.
He stills.
I don’t have to look to know where his gaze travels next. My boot, sitting a bit incriminating near the door, so very far from the other by the
chair.
Silence stretches.
Thick. Suffocating.
He stares at it for a long, terrible moment. Then, slowly—so slowly it feels like the turning of a heavy wheel—he lifts his gaze back to mine.
The blue of his eyes is flat, unreadable.
“M-my feet got hot,” I say.
“Of course.” He smiles again, but this time, the dimple doesn’t show.
The skin around his eyes remains tight, the expression pulled taut by invisible strings. “I apologize if the messenger caused you a scare.” He leans down, his lips pressing a kiss just behind my ear. It should be warm, but it sends a shiver down my neck as he whispers, “Trust me, it is nothing you should concern yourself with.”
