I had hoped he’d beenincantedso fast he wouldn’t remember. That was apparently not the case, further evidenced by the veil of heated metal he was trying to keep weighed down. My teeth sank into my lip. “To tell me we were leaving in the morning.”
Kye pulled back, his brow raised in skepticism. “And he didn’t trust me to hear that?”
“You did open the door and charge at him while reaching for your sword.” He opened his mouth to speak. “Forget about Thaan,” I said quickly, waving the name away with my hand. I grasped his fingers, pulling him with me as my feet began to move. Through the main room and down the hall, across the threshold of his bedroom door, following a passage laid by burning wicks and snowflake petals.
Kye followed slowly, hesitantly, eyeing me with vague concern. “What’s all this?” he asked when we stopped inside, the glass of his bedroom walls reflecting a hundred miniature lights.
“Candles.” Guilt rapped its knuckles against the inner walls of my chest, knocking for the chance to gain my audience, and I locked the bolt. “Don’t think about anything. Just let me talk.”
His hand slid partially out of mine. “If it comes from Thaan’s mouth, I don’t know if I want to hear it.”
“It’s not from his. It’s from mine.”
Golden eyes glimmered at me, buttery soft as the glow that surrounded us.
My heart squeezed with pain and fear, laced into my blood like thread in a needle. “I promise.”
Kye’s thumb coasted across my palm, halting as it hit the hard surface of my wedding band. His eyes shifted down to it, the pad of his thumb gliding over it again as he studied the ring on my finger, his quiet thoughts locked away. “Alright,” he finally said, his voice a whisper in the salty-sea air. “I trust you.”
Relief. Suffocating and foul and not satisfying in the least.
I forced a smile onto my face and rose onto my toes to kiss him. He didn’t pull away, but his mouth moved in a separate cadence from mine. Cautious and unsure. I grasped the collar of his jacket, keeping his mouth when he tried to break away, and felt his hands slide across my waist.
“Just…don’t think,” I said again.
“Fine, then,” he murmured against my mouth. “Just talk.”
Bones chilled to the marrow, I walked him backwards into the chair he’d used to tie me up on our wedding night, guiding hisMihauna-damned giant body down into it and climbing onto his lap. Knees on either side of his hips, I stared into his eyes.
“Talk,” he said.
“Nothing I say can be repeated. At any time. To anyone.”
His breath flamed gently across my nose. “Talk, Leihani.”
“Swear to me.”
His heart pounded as hard as mine, worry lining his eyes. “I swear.”
Releasing a gust of shaky air, my hands traced the sculpted line of his arms to stall for time. I wove my fingers into his. “I made a blood vow to Thaan on theAspire. One that will kill me if I break it. It’s laced with magic and—”
“Blood vow promising what?”
“Promising to marry you and…” My eyes closed briefly. “And to do something else.”
Kye didn’t move. He let me fidget. Let me lift his hands to his shoulders on either side of his neck where I braced my weight, leaning into him. “What else?”
Mihauna, my mouth was dry. My heart rioted, and each breath branded my lungs with the burn of regret. My lips parted but I paused, gathering my fears and shutting them away.
He watched my struggle, waiting for me to compose myself with quiet patience. “What else?”
“I can’t say the words. They turn to ash when I try.”
“Can I guess them instead?”
Eyes slick, I nodded.
“Something else…to do with me?”
