“What?” I asked as I pushed up on my elbows to look at him, my hair dropped over his face like a canopy.
“I forgot I ruined your clothes.”
“Oh.”
“Here, wear this.” He reached his arm out from under me, passing me his shirt. I stood reluctantly, not entirely wanting to be separated from him.
It smelled like him at least, and I couldn’t stop grinning as I shrugged it on. But my smile faltered as soon as I saw his frown. “What?”
“It barely covers your ass. I don’t want you walking around a camp full of Advenians wearing only that.”
I had no idea why that made my stomach do summersaults, but it did. I bit my lip as I looked down at him. His markings were barely visible, almost translucent, as the sweat on him was starting to dry. His white hair was slicked back and his freaking body…
He rose from the ground, pulling his pants up as he went. I couldn’t help but stare when he didn’t fasten the button, letting them loosely hang off his hips. He was so ungoddessly attractive, and he was all mine.
“It covers me,” I said as I looked down at his shirt. It rested slightly above my knees, and I was pretty sure the King forced me to wear more revealing dresses when he made me sit on Tezya’s lap during the annual meetings.
He closed the gap between us in two strides. “I’m going to get you more clothes.” His hands immediately found my waist as I stood on my tip-toes to kiss him back.
“Uh-huh. And where’s the guy who couldn’t wait to take me to the Luxian nude beaches?”
“That guy decided he doesn’t want to share you.”
A giggle escaped me as his grip tightened around me, pulling me further into his chest. I wrapped my arms around his neck, wanting his lips on me again.
Tezya stiffened a second before I heard the flaps of the tent open. I whirled to see who had entered, and my heart stopped as Sie froze in his tracks. I scanned what was left of the war tent. We’d completely ruined it. The chairs were thrown. Everything that was once on the table was now in shreds, the maps were completely destroyed. My ripped clothes were still scattered on the ground, the dagger thrown somewhere across the table. And I was in Tezya’s bare arms, his shirt now hiked halfway up my stomach, revealingeverythingas he held me.
Sie’s dark eyes flashed in shock for a split second, but then it was gone. Tezya released me but didn’t let go of my hand. I used my free one to nervously pull down on his shirt, suddenly wishing I had more fabric on.
Sie cleared his throat, his expression was cold. “Your sister started speaking.” He turned around and stormed out of the tent without another word, leaving the flaps fluttering behind him.
Tezya was still for one second before he bolted out of the tent with me in tow, not caring that he didn’t have a shirt on or that I still didn’t have pants. I wanted to say something, to ask him to wait, but I was just as nervous as he was for what Dovelyn would say. Any embarrassment I might have had vanished and only one thought consumed me—Why now?
I didn’t have time to process Sie walking in on us or the crowd gathering around the princess outside the dining hall.
Tezya stilled, his hand squeezing mine as Dovelyn’s voice rang out to us, except it didn’t quite sound like her. There was something off about it. Something darker, something lower…
“The world must start anew. Forged in peace, one shall be born with the powers of two.
Light and Dark will come together. The chosen one will be the tether.
Beneath the Goddesses’ feet, is the information you seek.
To manipulate Pylemo’s gifted fire, the son must use it against his claimed sire.
But without a sacrifice from Light and blood spilled from Dark, the chosen one will lose his spark.”
Dovelyn’s eyeswere the same milky blue from when we were at their mother’s grave. She spoke in a rushed tone, like she couldn’t hold the words in even if she wanted to. She chanted the same rhyme over and over until the crowd parted and her milky eyes rested on Tezya. Something about him made her stop her frantic chanting, but her eyes didn’t return to normal. She just kept staring at him, frozen in time. If she had pupils, they would have been blown wide.
Then as quickly as she stopped, a scream rippled from her lungs before her voice broke with pleading sobs, and she fell to her knees. “He will die. He will die. Gone. Gone. Gone. Please. I can’t lose him.”
Tears were running down her pale face. “Okay,” she shrieked in resignation, her body sagging on the ground as everyone collectively took a step back. “His fire must be used. Chosen. Chosen. He was chosen by Pylemo. He is the only one who can kill him. Must do it. Too strong. He is too strong. Not balanced.Scale tipped. Use all the fire. Use everything. Everything until there is none. Everything untilheis gone.”
Her head was tilted up toward the sky as her voice continued to ring out, carrying her broken sentences throughout the entire camp.
She’s talking to someone, I said to Tezya as I squeezed his hand because there was no doubt Dovelyn was having a conversation with someone who wasn’t there.
I know, he answered in my mind.
