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A half second later, the door to the hall clicked shut behind them, leaving Erida to glitter in the cramped salon. Outside the window, the red sky glowed, the sun well above the horizon.
My mind is my own.
She repeated the old refrain, the one she used to tell herself to remain steady when she felt alone. Now she held on to it tightly, as she would a shield. A gentle divider between herself, and what crawled through her thoughts.
To her surprise, she felt something like a tug, gentle but firm. Half of her wanted to walk out too, eager to face what had only begun. She need only convene her council and speak the command that would set all in motion.
The other half of her smiled, all but vibrating in her skin. She checked the door again, then swept forward so quickly Taristan flinched. Her skirts swirled across the floor as she took him by the shoulders, her teeth bared into a too-wide smile.
“Iona,” she said, barely daring to speak the word aloud.
His own hands closed over her arms, his fingers blazing even through her sleeves. The line of his brow tightened with concern. Red stirred in the black of his eyes. Only a glimmer, sparks beneath steel. Enough to betray the thin veil that existed between Taristan’s mind, and something else. For now, the black abyss of his own soul won out, devouring.
“Iona?” he echoed.
“Corayne flees to the Elder enclave,” she said, ignoring the sharp pressure of his grasp. “She has the Spindleblade, she’s alive, and she thinks she can outlast us within the walls of a crumbling castle.”
Taristan was many things. A prince of an ancient bloodline. A queen’s consort. A demon’s tool. A mercenary, a murderer, a jealous orphan grasping at some semblance of a future. They all flashed across his face, pulled to the surface.
“How do you know this?” His voice shook.
It was both a question and an accusation.
“How do you know this?” he asked again, shaking her shoulders harshly.
This time, Erida did not flinch. She held his gaze, resolute and proud. The phantom pull remained, like a river current flowing past her legs, gently nudging her toward the hall. She held her ground, even as the pressure mounted.
Slowly, without blinking, Taristan undid the laces at her neck. With one hand, he pulled aside the silk fabric, laying bare the top of her collarbone. His breath turned shallow as he laid his palm to her skin.
She flamed beneath him, burning as he burned.
“Erida,” he whispered, a broken edge to his voice.
She could only blink, trembling beneath his hand. Too many words stuck in her mouth, rattling the cage of teeth. She searched his face, his eyes, his inches, trying to read the emotions as they welled up in him.
The Queen expected him to be impressed, proud, intrigued.
I am joined to you in every way now, she thought.You should kneel at my feet and be grateful for my choice.
Instead, her heart twisted.
Taristan was furious.
“I am following the path you already walk,” she hissed, her rage rising to match his own. “So that we might walk it forever.Together.”
Still he held her, bruises blooming beneath his fingers. The pain was dull in comparison to the pain in her own chest. They braided together, fury and sorrow, until she could not distinguish one from the other.
Finally, Taristan loosened his grip but did not step back, holding his ground. He towered over her, dangerous as the day she first saw him. All his scars stood out, white against flushing skin, laying bare the truth of Taristan’s life. He was a survivor first, above all things.
“I did not want this for you,” he hissed. “You do not know what you have done.”
“You paid your price to What Waits. And I have paid mine,” Erida snapped. She refused to think of the old woman tucked away in her bed, her eyes open and glassy, unseeing in death.
“Does that bother you?” she pressed on, half-mad. She felt like a galloping horse with no rider to rein her in. “That I am your equal in His eyes?”
“Erida,” he warned. The low timbre of his voice rattled the air.
She did not care, her blood turned to venom, stinging in her veins. Her own skin blazed, and she feared her silk gown might turn to embers.
