“At first.”
I slanted my head to look at him. He ran a hand through the roots of his hair. “I went to Leihani and found Thaan, sent by the King to deal with me. He was standing on the docks, listening to the islanders screaming for your head, accusing you of murder. He’d drawn up your arrest and death certificate before I even landed. I promised his neck if he acted on it, went to order the captain to head for Neris Island—and the next thing I knew, I woke up surrounded by ocean, my name in ink on the very note I’d fought Thaan over. And you… you were gone.”
He drew his lower lip into his mouth, teeth scraping it as he pulled it back out. “That was when it sank in, I think. That I loved you. What other explanation could there have been, for the way I attacked them all. I went savage, Leihani. I went mad. I’d never known such fury. I loved you, and you were gone. I loved you. And you were dead. I destroyed half the boat. Punched at least four sailors. Knocked one of them out cold. Forced the captain to turn around. I needed to see you for myself.”
“I remember hearing a fight,” I said. “That’s why it took four days instead of three.”
Kye nodded. “Then it happened again. I woke up, another day passed. I thought it was the whiskey they’d given me to calm me down after the captain turned south. I thought I’d maybe drank more than I realized. But it happened a third morning, and I hadn’t drunk anything the night before.
“Then on the fourth, I woke in my bed in the tower, and knew something was wrong. I wracked my brain for my memories, and it felt like they were there. Like they’d been stuffed into a box and put on the highest shelf, just out of reach. I could see them, but I couldn’tseethem. I went to find Hadrian. I knewhe’d be worried about me, leaving right after he’d told me he was sick. Hadrian knows—” He hesitated, voice dropping even softer. “He knows how I fear inheriting the throne. He knows the King isn’t well in the head. And that wearing the crown is likely the cause. I went to apologize, and Hadrian congratulated me.”
My brows tightened in confusion. “For?”
“My engagement,” Kye breathed. “For finding something—someone—that would ground me at home. For the woman I’d brought back with me from the islands, with dark hair and obsidian eyes.”
The autumn breeze tapped softly against our window. I shifted again, uncomfortable. Those months in Calder. Kye’s outright disgust for my presence…
“But I hadn’t brought anyone back with me. I didn’t believe him at first. I thought it was a cruel joke. I was still trying to understand your death, were you really alive? In my tower, in the apartment across from mine? So, I set off to see and ran into Thaan.” He exhaled, the sound lonesome. Ashamed. “He congratulated me as well, then asked how we’d met on the island.”
His words settled slowly, tugging at my chest, eerie in my ears. “Howwemet?” I asked, gesturing between myself and Kye.
He nodded slowly. “He said you’d walked in his office that morning and asked for him. That you seemed worthy in looks, but that he’d expected a match from a higher station than some Leihaniian lord’s daughter. That the palace was already circling with rumors that you were using me to target Hadrian. He said he’d never heard your name before that day. And I thought… I thought you’d somehow taken his memories, too.
“I climbed the stairs of my tower and found Lady Selena leaving your apartment. Heard her voice as she walked out the door, saying goodbye to someone inside. She and I passed each other in the hallway… and my eyes landed on you. And my heart”—he pressed his palm to his chest— “my heart burst with relief. I could have wept at the sight of you. But my head… my head filled with caution. You looked at me with such contempt. With hatred in your eyes. You looked at me, and you weren’t the same girl from the islands. You weren’t timid and shy. You looked at me, and it was plain on your face. In every word you spoke. You wanted me dead.
“I struggled for weeks with the idea that my mother had told me I’d find a reason to live, and that I’d found you. I thought, maybe she’d meant to protect Hadrian from you.” I glanced sharply at Kye, unwittingly veering so close to the truth. But he didn’t seem to notice. “That maybe she’d gotten it wrong. Or maybe, it wasn’t her at all. Maybe it had been you, sneaking memories into my head as easily as you snuck them out.
“I knew I was a fool. That I should have tried harder to make you disappear. Every time we spoke, you dripped with malice. Every time you spoke my name, it was like a bitter piece of fruit you spat out. When you and Hadrian walked together to the training yard, my blood boiled. I didn’t know which I was angrier over—that you were living in the castle with the intention of killing him. That you were there to get to him by usingme. Or that he’d had an Aalto-damned moment alone with you without the hostility you saved just for me. And then, there was the fact that I was fucking jealous.”
“It was just a short walk,” I said, grateful the room was mostly dark to hide whatever expression I knew I failed to hide. “Hardly reason to be jealous.”
“It wasn’t just the walk. Every man in the City of Towers watched you when you passed, and some of the women, too. I used to count the heads that turned after you, stewing in my shoes. I could almost hear their thoughts as they undressed you in their mind, or I’d stumble on a conversation involving the fantasy of you in their bed.
“It was maddening, Leihani, what that did to me. That you were engaged to me. You weremine. And they couldn’t keep their eyes away. That I knew you’d enchanted me, done something to bewitch me. That I was endangering my brother by letting it happen. That I threatened men in the palace for committing the same crime I had: hoping you’d look my way. Or stop and flirt with me.
“When I entered a room in the palace, my eyes would search for you. At night, I’d sit and watch the neighboring tower, waiting for light to bounce off it from your window, so I knew you were in there. At parties, I’d follow you from a distance, telling myself I was making sure you didn’t run off and take part in some secret malicious scheme. But deep down, I knew it was because I couldn’t help myself. I needed to know you were alive. Safe. And not in some other bastard’s bed.”
In the dim light, Kye licked his bottom lip. “And then our engagement night came. I’d had a fight with the King that morning when he told me I was to leave for Winterlight. That we would be announcing it that evening. And I’d noticed a pattern. Whenever I attended an event, I’d wake the following morning, my memory of the evening wiped from my brain. So, I locked myself in my rooms all day, until the party was well underway and the grounds were clear. I snuck out with my bottle. I just wanted to watch the sunset from the shadows, toast my stupidity to myself, and go back to my room. But then you came.”
He groaned softly, rubbing his face with a rough hand. “And that dress, Leihani. That fucking dress. If I didn’t know what death felt like from the banks of Neris Island, I’d have thought you killed me in that dress. I told you to jump, but if you had, I would have jumped too. I saw the look in your eyes when you realized I was there. That I’d hurt you by not going to the announcement. It caught me off guard, the thought that I could hurt you. I knew that was why you stayed and taunted me. Tohurt me back. Then you mentioned Hadrian, and it all went to shit. Was I worried about leaving Laurier Palace, leaving you with him? Yes. But was I also jealous that he got to stay, got to live under the same roof with you, and I didn’t? Fucking Aalto knew I was. And pissed off and irrational.
“I had to know. Who you really were. Why you were really there. Were you just fucking with my head? Was I a piece in your game? So, I convinced Hadrian to let me have the Soul Rings. They should have been his, being the first born. My mother left them to him. I went to his tower after you threw the knife in the water and confessed everything to him. That Thaan had told me on the ship you were dead. That I didn’t remember agreeing to marry you. That I was sure you were a witch. Or a spy from Rivea. Or possibly both.
“We went through the Leihani census together. Found you and traced your family line back fifty years. Fifty more. A hundred more. Found where the lordship had been added in to your lineage. I’d been to Leihani. Your father didn’t own an estate. He didn’t pay taxes to the crown. You’d been born into one of the poorest households on the island. You’d never even seen a fucking mirror. Why were you here, inseparable from Lady Selena, one of Thaan’s closest confidants? What was your connection to him?
“And then, Hadrian told me something odd. He said that six months before, inArienne, before you and I had ever met, Thaan had approached him as he was studying a new painting in the art gallery. And sang.”
My brows tightened, my focus on his words sharpening.
“Thaan sang while Hadrian was facing away, and when Hadrian turned around, Thaan said, ‘Come with me.’ Hadrian asked, ‘Where?’ and Thaan seemed surprised. Flustered. Thaan is never flustered. He’s always so Aalto-damned bored and superior. It was strange enough I didn’t want Hadrian near him.I didn’t want you near him either, though that was difficult to demand as I was readying to leave the palace. Thaan tried to speak to me the day of our wedding, and I didn’t give him the chance.”
“I remember,” I murmured. The way he’d snatched my hand and hauled me away.
Talk to whoever you want tonight. But not him, and not my brother.
Kye nodded vaguely. We listened to the sounds of night together. Wind and ocean whispering beyond our only window. An owl calling somewhere in the trees outside. The innkeeper and his wife, finishing the day’s chores down the hallway.
“Our wedding night…” I said, letting my voice trail. Asking a question, though what the question was, I wasn’t sure.
