by Elly Blake
Arcus’s voice came through the thick oak. “Let her in.”
I entered his room, all my bluster leaving as soon as I set foot on the plush carpet. The guard shut the door behind me.
Arcus sat propped up on his pillows and his face held more color, but the look in his eyes was blank. Empty. Focused on something behind me, as if I was a stranger who happened to walk between him and the person he was talking to. Apparently he’d spent the last three days reinforcing those walls.
I stood awkwardly for a moment. “How is your wound?”
“They say it’s healing well.”
I nodded. Everything about his voice, posture, and expression told me that I wasn’t welcome. That he couldn’t bear to look at me.
I forced the words out, one by one. “I came to say good-bye.”
His eyes slid closed. If it weren’t for the humming tension in every line of his body, I’d think he’d just fallen asleep.
“This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do,” I whispered, trembling.
He shrugged his good shoulder, an elongated motion that spoke of indifference.
Heat flared, instant and sharp, and it was a relief. I preferred anger to that killing uncertainty. “So you’re not even speaking to me?”
His eyes met mine with an intense look that was both confused and angry. “I just don’t understand why you’re doing this. Why trust that stranger? You say you’re doing this for the kingdom and for me, but admit it, Ruby—you’re really doing this for you. You want to go to Sudesia, and you want to do it on your terms. This whole thing is damn selfish.” The words were equivalent to a shove in the chest.
“You’re being unreasonable,” I argued. “You, who prides himself on reason.”
“Except I’ve never been reasonable when it comes to you.”
The bald statement brought me up short. If he’d said that to me a few days ago, I would have been delighted, buoyed at the thought that he felt too much for me to be logical. But now the words sliced my rib cage like a scythe. This might be the last time he admitted to feeling anything for me more than anger. Or worse, indifference.
In our shared history, I’d never truly let Arcus see how much I needed him. And he, in perfect pantomime, did the same. No one wanted to be the first to admit we felt more than we could handle.
And now, I was walking away.
A stabbing pain radiated from my heart, which seemed confused about whether to pour out heat or to stop beating altogether.
Was he right? Was I just looking for excuses to go to Sudesia?
No. I might be impulsive, but Brother Thistle wasn’t. He had no agenda other than helping Arcus, helping Tempesia. He also cared about me and wouldn’t risk my safety if he didn’t think it absolutely necessary. We needed to take this chance.
And I had to try to pull Arcus back to me before I left.
I moved so close that my legs pressed against the side of the mattress. My hand came to rest on his arm, its muscles rigid with tension. The temperature dropped, giving him away. He wasn’t as calm as he wanted me to believe. There were cracks in his defenses.
As I bent toward him, he turned his head away and my lips landed on his cheek. The world narrowed to the small patch of his skin where two opposing temperatures struggled for dominance: the insistent heat of my lips, the defiant cold of his cheek. Neither yielding. Neither moving. The breath in my lungs cooled.
The realization hit me like shards of broken glass: He was not going to acknowledge my caress. He was going to pretend I wasn’t even here, denouncing me completely with his perfect stillness. It felt as if I were being slowly ripped in half. He was forcing me into a choice I’d had no intention of making: To save the kingdom, I would lose him.
My heart skipped a beat when he finally moved. His hand came out to cover mine, his skin colder than my northern village in the dead of winter. Relief flooded me at his touch, until I realized he was only peeling my fingers from his arm, one by one.
“Good-bye, Ruby.” His voice was as empty as the abandoned arena, echoing with the ghosts of past pain.
The shock somehow released me from my paralysis. I straightened.
“Good-bye,” I echoed, my blood heating with anger. His skin was marble, his eyes so pale they were light gray, almost colorless. I know you care about me! I wanted to shout. Don’t push me away!
I needed to move. I focused on the muscles in my legs, telling them to turn me in the direction of the door. Ordering my feet to take me away. Now, quick, before you scream and rage and make a fool of yourself.
Then, just as I started to turn, his face twisted, as if something inside him had suddenly broken. His hands gripped my wrists and pulled, but I was already pitching forward, my hand clutching his shoulder. Our lips met with jarring force, the reverberation landing in my jaw. And then the angle righted itself as he tilted his head to welcome the invasion.
He was so cold against my tongue that I shivered. He tasted like a winter morning, of icy water and mint tea. I drank him in with thirsty sips and he nipped my lower lip in punishment and reward.
When his fingers dove into the hair at the nape of my neck and his open mouth slid to the sensitive spot under my ear, I forgot everything except need, scrambling to throw my leg over his hips so I straddled him, my chest leaning against his. It took a moment for me to recognize his sharp inhalation as pain. He was injured and I was hurting him.
I subsided instantly, crumpling next to him like a falling scarf, settling slowly into stillness. His hand grabbed mine and drew it to his mouth, continuing the kiss in a safer, softer way. His lips rested against my wrist, where the red vein still throbbed with passion, soothing the skin while the pulse beneath slowly returned to normal.
We stayed that way for a long time, silent except for breathing that went from ragged to even. I shifted so that my head was pillowed on a spot low enough on his chest that I didn’t touch the bandage. His hand settled on my head, stroking my hair. My scalp tingled with pleasure. After a while, the silence thickened.
“Why do we always go back to hurting each other?” I asked in a small voice, hoping not to destroy the fragile truce.
He paused long enough that I started to worry. “Because we feel too much,” he said roughly.
I nodded, my head still tucked against his torso, relieved and full of understanding. “You hate it. Feeling.”
“No, I don’t,” he denied instantly. “I hate… being at the mercy of it. I hate when I can’t tuck the feelings away because they’re too strong.”
I lifted his hand and played with his fingers, thinking how beautiful they were—strong and capable and dusted with fine brown hairs.
“You’d be better off with someone who”—I swallowed—“didn’t make you feel so out of control.”
“Maybe,” he said after a moment, making my heart stutter sickly. “But I wouldn’t choose that.”
I said very quietly, “You might have to choose that.”
He had a duty to his people, to his court, but I wanted to hear him say that he didn’t want the perfectly bred Marella, that he’d rather have me. But that was unfair to ask of him now, when I was about to leave. I closed my eyes tight, tight, and tried not to think about how much easier that choice could be in my absence.
“We have to let each other go a little,” he said very softly, as if reading my mind, confirming my worst fears. “We both know that the future… We might have choices ahead that we can’t predict now. We have to allow each other to make them without blame.”
He said it so gently, tenderly. Somehow that made it hurt more. Why did he have to be so reasonable now, when I’d finally surrendered to feeling? I couldn’t hold back the tears, my body shaking a little as I tried to quell them.
“I don’t want to let you go,” he said unevenly, “but I’ll go mad if I try to keep holding on. You are flame, Ruby, and fire can either be free or it will be smothered. The last thing I want…” His voice broke, and the sound was like a
kick in my chest. “The last thing I want is to smother you.”
I sat up and turned away fully so that my back faced him, not as a dismissal, but because I needed the space. I didn’t want to think about how right he was. His hand came out and smoothed my back, first pushing my hair out of the way, then touching the base of my neck, his fingers lingering over each vertebra on the way down.
I turned back to him and grabbed his hand, pressing my lips to it, then resting my forehead against his knuckles. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He twisted so that his fingers touched my cheek and my lips rested in his palm. After a minute, he took a shuddering breath.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said softly, “but I’m so tired. I just… I can’t bear much more of this.”
I knew he was injured and sore and exhausted, but it still hurt to be pushed away. I had to be mature enough to leave him. To stop begging him, in all my subtle and not-so-subtle ways, to give me reasons to stay. If I backed down now, I doomed us all with my cowardice.
But I couldn’t help asking quietly, “If—when I come back, will there be any place for me? With you?”
His voice was broken granite. “Always.”
Emotion filled my chest, so much I ached with it. I couldn’t ask for more than that.
So I gave his hand a harsh, almost bruising kiss, stood, turned, and walked to the door. I didn’t let myself look back. I knew I wasn’t that strong. It felt like lead weights had been tied to my feet. I stepped from the room, shut the door, and moved carefully down the hallway, feeling as if I’d left behind some vital and irreplaceable part of myself in the room.
The sky was gray outside the windows. The light that flowed into the hallway was gray. Even my skin, when I looked at my hand that still wore the ring, looked a sickly gray.
But the ruby in the ring shone as if the very heart of fire lived inside of it. And my heart gave a struggling little pulse of heat in reply.
SIX
A BRINY TANG SALTED THE AIR LONG before I crested a ridge that overlooked the bustling port city of Tevros. A vast bay sparkled in the midday sun. Docks poked out from the wharf surrounded by a profusion of vessels, from humble fishing boats to fat merchant ships, all with blinding white sails.
I pushed a hand against my galloping heart. For a minute, the fog that had clouded my mind since leaving Arcus lifted. I’d once asked if he would show me the sea someday, a longing I’d had since childhood, when the farthest I’d traveled was to the next village. Arcus had agreed, but now I was seeing it without him. What would he have pointed out to me, if he were here? What might he see that I would miss?
Even with the rocky headlands jutting out on both sides, the sheer mass of water amazed me. Staring at it gave me a feeling of insignificance. Once aboard the ship, I would be nothing more than a grain of sand on a piece of driftwood, tossed about by that infinity of churning and thrashing.
I sighed and continued down a winding footpath. I tried, for the hundredth time, to rub the ache in my chest with the heel of my hand. It felt like a thorn was rooted there, a little to the left of my breastbone, somewhere soft and tender where it would fester. Each word Arcus had said to me in that final conversation kept echoing in my head, the feeling of our kiss imprinted on my lips and in my blood. He said there’d always be a place for me. I told myself that, especially when I started imagining the worst—that he might cut me out of his memories, unwinding the threads of shared experiences that bound us, and freezing out the parts of his heart he’d told me, in that tender moment at the ball, that I’d melted.
I took a shuddering breath and dropped my hand. Hearts didn’t explode, no matter how much it might feel like it. The pain would ease, eventually. And I couldn’t second-guess my decision to leave. It served no purpose.
It was a relief to finally be alone. Brother Thistle had accompanied me, using the ride to discuss details of my mission, right up to the crossroads a mile back, my fork taking me to Tevros, his to Forwind Abbey.
As I’d shifted some of my supplies to his horse, he’d dismounted and surprised me with a quick hug.
“Be careful.” He’d put his hands on my shoulders and peered at me intently. “Do not take any foolish risks.”
“You take the fun out of everything.”
“You will be circumspect in all things. Cautious and calm. You won’t lose your temper.”
I glanced around. “Who are you speaking to? That certainly doesn’t sound like me.”
His thick brows moved together like storm clouds gathering above the pale skies of his irises. “I wish I could go with you.”
“Well, since you can’t, make sure you check in on Arcus, would you? I hate that he’s alone with the Blue Legion still lurking around.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t leave him for long. Just until his temper cools. And he has several allies he can trust. I made sure they would watch over him. Focus on your task. And keep safe.”
I patted the back of his hand. “You too.”
I’d sent my gelding with him, eager to be out of the saddle after three days’ ride. We’d had a dozen guards nipping at our heels the whole journey, on Arcus’s orders, but I’d managed to convince them to return to the capital this morning. The previous night, we’d gone to an inn and I’d paid for round after round of ale with the heavy bag of coins the royal purser had given me for the trip. The guards had slumped over their pommels as we rode from the inn to the crossroads, their bleary, bloodshot eyes scanning halfheartedly for trouble. Brother Thistle assured them they could leave me to my own devices.
We both knew a contingent of the king’s guard would probably ruffle Kai’s feathers. Better I go alone.
Tevros was nothing much to look at. If the gleaming harbor was its face, then the city was its backside, with a tightly packed center hemmed in by cramped and ugly houses perched like squashed hats on scrubby, sloping land. Soon, I was off the hilly footpath and weaving through the busy streets.
I didn’t have much experience with cities. It was all so much to take in: noisily rattling carts and painted wagons, baritone-voiced sailors and well-dressed merchants, exhausted-looking parents herding inquisitive children, vegetable stands and storefronts and peddlers. And the smells of fish and sweat and flowers and piss and the sea.
As I passed a shadowed alley, there was a flash of movement, a brush against my leg, and I suddenly felt lighter on one side. It took a second to realize my money purse was gone.
Furious at how easily I’d been robbed, I followed the sound of running feet. When I turned the corner into another alley, I came up short.
There stood the familiar lean form of a ginger-gold-haired, olive-skinned, crookedly smiling man. He was holding a small urchin who thrashed and kicked, a money purse clutched in one small, dirty hand.
“Ah, now what have I caught?” Kai mused calmly. “A tiny fish. But you’re too small for the dinner table.”
“Let me go!” The voice was high and I realized the pickpocket was a girl, her eyes wide. “Or I’ll… I’ll tell the constable you’re trying to kidnap me.”
Kai chuckled. “You wish to clean out our purses, but we’re not ready to part with all those shiny coins just yet.”
“Just bumped into her by accident,” the pickpocket said. “I didn’t mean to—”
Kai tsked. “Don’t debase yourself with lies, little fish. You’re skilled at your vocation, and I appreciate skill. Why don’t we test the dexterity of those clever fins? If you catch this coin as it falls, it’s yours. If I catch it, we’ll find that constable and see if he throws you back into the sea.”
Kai took the purse, drew out a coin, and tossed it into the air. It arced high and descended. The girl’s hand shot out and snatched it. She grinned, her face flushed with triumph.
Seeing her smile, a bolt of recognition shot through me: a sick little girl on a winter’s night when I’d run away from the abbey and ended up at the camp of some refugees who had fled the Frost King’s sold
iers. The families had been on their way to Tevros to see if they could board a ship and make a new life somewhere else. But the girl had been ill with a fever and a cough. I’d tried to help by finding the right herbs to heal her before the adults had chased me off. I’d often wondered about her, hoping she’d recovered.
I took in the urchin’s flushed cheeks and the thick hair escaping from her cap. Her eyes shone with health, no longer bleary with fever, but her face was leaner, her features sharper.
“Kaitryn,” I said, remembering her name.
Her eyes widened further. She turned swiftly, but Kai’s hand shot out to grab her elbow before she could bolt. “I believe the lady knows you, little fish,” he said calmly.
“Kaitryn, it’s me, Ruby.” I stepped forward and smiled reassuringly. “I met you when you had a fever. You probably don’t remember.”
“I remember.” She stared at me for a few seconds. “They said you were a Fireblood and you’d get us all killed.”
My lips twisted. “Well, I hope that last part wasn’t true.” I continued to smile, wishing she didn’t look so scared. Or was that resentment in her gaze? “I’m so glad you recovered and made it to Tevros.”
“Tevros is a hole,” she said bluntly. “There’s hardly any work here, and no ships will take us anywhere without the coin. My parents spent all their money on herbs to cure my lungs. Then my father got sick. Least, that’s what my mother calls it, but he changed into someone else overnight. Went wild for no reason. One day, he killed someone in a fight. Went to prison and died a week later.”
I felt the blood leave my face. “Kaitryn, I’m so sorry.” There was no doubt that her father had been possessed by the Minax. Which meant that in freeing it, I had ruined her family.
She shrugged off my sympathy, but the pain in her eyes was unmistakable.
I turned to Kai. “Give the purse back to her.” He looked at me quizzically for a moment, then shrugged and offered it up.
Kaitryn’s eyes went wide. “Really?”