“How do you have these?” I asked, then realized the answer as I handed the timepiece back to him, its gears softly clicking away. “The pirates attacked Veles and Reija after we left the market in Vranna.”
His jaw tightened. “I assume they’re both dead.”
Guilt flared in the back of my throat. “This is how you knew I was watching you train with the Royal Guard,” I murmured, twisting his ring on my hand. The memory of his eyes meeting mine through the glass just before Aren struck him with the hilt of his sword flashed in my head. “How you knew an arrow would be shot in my direction just before it happened.”
Kye nodded. “I should have knowntheywere there, at Cynthus Castle. Kriska and his pirates. I should have felt them approaching us. But I’d taken all my rings off so I wouldn’t lose them in the tide. Kept my wedding ring on, knowing…knowing I would try to break into your thoughts one more time. I shouldn’t have taken this one off. It’s my fault they captured us. It’s my fault they chained you to the cabin wall. Forced you to drug yourself into sleep. Made you think you might die.” He closed his eyes and swallowed again, a track of moisture escaping his lashes to streak down to his chin. “It’s my fault Burian put his hands on you when you couldn’t protect yourself from him. It’s my fault that ships scare you. It’smyfault. And it’s killed me every day since, knowing I let it happen.”
“Kye,” I whispered. “It’s not.”
“And then, I promised myself I wouldn’t let it leave my finger ever again. But we needed money. You didn’t want to sail to Calder. And I thought, it’s my fault you couldn’t board a ship. So, I sold it to buy us two horses. And they caught up to us again—and I couldn’t sense it before it happened.
“And I can’t explain the terror I felt when I realized Kriska took you from me. Pure, fucking engulfing terror. I tried to follow, but Demyan and Burian blocked my way. Kolibri wastangled in ropes on the ground, and you had vanished. I couldn’t even go after you, I was forced to fight them. I'm trained to fight multiple men at a time. Three can be a challenge, but give me a sword and I can hold my own with only two. And they realized it. They ran to their horses, hidden in the bushes behind our camp. And suddenly I was alone, with no idea where you were.
I tracked them for hours. They took the long way to Kriska, weaving back and forth, trying to lose me, I’m sure. Aren—Aren is a better tracker.Hewould have found you sooner than I did. I kept praying to Aalto I’d hear them, or that I’d hear you, and then I did. And you were screaming.”
Kye paused, eyes flicking up to meet mine, thick with shining silver. I shifted my weight, coaxing the rawness in the back of my throat.
“You were lifeless, hanging from that tree,” he whispered, tearing his gaze from mine to lean forward, sinking his face into his hands. “I thought you were dead. And I knew two things. One, I’d kill them. Sword, knife, bare fucking hands. It didn’t matter how. It didn’t matter what happened to me. I’d rip them to shreds, one inch of skin at a time.
“And two, I knew that if you’d left me… if you’d left this world and gone to Perpetuum… I knew I’d fight tooth and fist and fucking nail to drag you back. Gateways be damned. Guardians of the Sky be damned. The Sea of Stars be damned. Sun and moon and Darkness be damned. I told you I’d come for you. And I meant it.”
39
Maren
Iswallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. “All that since Neris Island?”
He didn’t answer. Eyes buried under his fingers, he didn’t make a sound. Didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
“Kye.”
“I hated myself for it. I think that’s why I was so cruel to you when I found us suddenly in Calder. I knew I loved you. That I’d been in love with you for weeks. That you were using me to take Hadrian’s life. That I didn’t trust you, but I was in love with you anyway.”
“Kye,” I said, ignoring the rippling anxiety over hearing Hadrian’s name alongside the thought of my killing him.
“There are ways to end a marriage,” he murmured through his hands. “We haven’t…you don’t have to stay. You’re within your rights to leave. We could have it annulled by an Aalton Priest.”
“Kye, stop, you outright imbecile.” I grasped his hand and pulled it into my lap, wrapping my fingers around it, forcing him to let me see his eyes. “I love you.”
Silence fractured every inch of my skin, but I watched his head finally lift, searching for me. “You do?”
“Yes,” I breathed. ToMihaunaand back, it was probably a mistake to tell him. It would probably hurt all the worse, when our fates came for us like Darkness on a wind, slicing into my lies and spilling my secrets for Kye to see. My eyes beat back the sudden onslaught of tears. “I love you.”
The words didn’t seem like enough. Three little words that couldn’t possibly hold the weight of what they meant. What crackled inside me, blooming and climbing and demanding my heart for what I realized had been months now.
He closed his eyes. “I’m a coward.”
“You are not.”
His throat worked. “I’m very flawed.”
I wove my fingers through his, the rough scrape of his callouses igniting under my skin. “So am I.”
“And selfish.”
“I don’t find you selfish.”
“And scarred. In more ways than one.”
