“What do you need to tell me?” I asked, my voice suddenly raspy.
Kye led me to the edge of the bed, sitting beside me. The mattress dipped under us, thatched straw grating as it bore our weight. “There is lore behind this pair of rings.”
“This pair? My ring?” My words echoed in my head.
My ring.
I watched his thumb as it drummed over his thigh. “My mother was called the Princess of Thieves,” Kye said. “Her father dealt in the riches of the black trade of Cressi, and these rings were part of her dowry. They’re called the Soul Rings. They belonged to my parents.”
“To your mother and the King.”
Silence trickled around us, through the walls and across the floor. “No,” Kye answered softly. “To my parents.”
He waited for me to conceive a thought that had begun to materialize in my mind weeks before. “Who?”
“A man she was in love with,” he said simply. Wistfully.
“But Hadrian?”
“Shares the King’s blood.”
“And Jonet?”
Another one, Cemre?
Kye sighed. “She and I share a father.” He leaned back on a palm, the mattress protesting as he shifted away. “The rings are said to be made of the blood of two souls who lived and died by sea. If a couple makes love while wearing them, it ties them together. Body and mind.”
Two souls who lived and died by sea.
Naiads?
“It only works once,” he continued. “Once you tie to a soul, you can’t take it back. You can’t choose another instead.”
“These rings were supposed to be saved for Emilius and her,” I ventured, trailing the steps of his story. “But she shared them with another man first.”
The blurred silhouette of his head nodded. “And he never forgave her for it.”
“Your father?”
“No. The King.”
He waited for me to understand, but my brows twinged in confusion. I rolled the delicate ring in the center of my hand. “How would the King have known?”
Kye’s heart rate increased. Acrid fear escaped him, sour dread filling the air. “The rings bind two souls, body andmind. My mother gave Emilius a false ring. He expected to take her to bed and live the remainder of his life hearing her thoughts. But their wedding night came and went. And he never did.”
I blinked into the dark, the significance of his words slowly sinking into my bones. My legs straightened as I lifted off the bed, and the unmistakable sound of Kye running a rough hand through his hair met my ears.
Body and mind. Hearing her thoughts.
“You gave me this ring,” I said, turning to face him, though all I found was the rigid outline of his body, chin tucked into his chest and fingers deep in the roots of his hair. “You gave me this ring and took me to your bedroom—”
“I couldn’t do it,” Kye murmured.
“And the beach at Cynthus Castle—”
“I couldn’t then, either.”
I backed away, bare feet sliding over the cold floorboards.
