“No, I don’t want a fucking berry. I want her.”
“You can’t eat h–” He cuts himself off, but I can hear her giggles ringing in my ears. She would’ve laughed so fucking freely at that. Will she still? Or did I break that? Break her?
Struggling to breathe, I walk faster. Then run. Trying to expunge this desperate energy.
He keeps pace beside me. As annoyed as I am with him though, I’m also grateful to him. He could’ve insisted I bring a whole group of guards with me to Brownston. That would have felt too damn suffocating when I’m already struggling to suck in air.
To find peace through the chaos of my thoughts.
I can give up my crown…
Evangeline isn’t a Morningstar…
I can fake my death, making Nicholas king. Then my ex can marry him...
An hour or so later, I slow to a walk again. We’ve left the suffocating stalks of the meadow and are in a bit of open air. My heart is racing, but it’s a fucking tortoise compared to my thoughts.
“I need to see her.” Spinning towards Jace, I hope like hel he can see the words on my face. The decision I’ve made – the one Ishould’vemade as soon as that vote was in. I never wanted to be king in the first place. I’ve kept going all this time because Aurelia meant so much to me –meansso much to me still, but she is dead, and she would’ve wanted this. I can see her smiling so purely in my mind, can almost feel her arms around me.
“You’ve finally started living again, Dickie. I’m proud of you.”
Jace nearly breaks in front of me. And I know he can see it.
Guilt slams into me. I stumble back. If I heal, I will be leaving him all alone. “Jace –” I start.
He shakes his head. That triangular knife he carries, the one she gave him all those years ago, spins in his hand. He cuts himself over and over again. His arms. His chest. Even his face.
“Jace –”
“Stop,” he hisses. “Just stop.”
Blood pours down his body. He breathes heavily. Shakes too damn hard.
Shit.On our last holiday with Aurelia, we went to see Brownston – the very one my queen is from. I shouldn’t have taken Jace here. Not this close to her anniversary.
“You will see her,” he finally says, his words tight as he looks at me, “when she asks to see you.”
Wiping his blade on his sleeve, he then pockets it. But he doesn’t smile. Doesn’t slip back behind that mask he alwayswears. I stare at him, trying to think of what to say. It was never easy, patching up the hole Aurelia left behind in the both of us, helping him through his pain. But now it feels impossible when he’s still grieving her and I’m ready to move on.
When I want to pass her dream of Raza on to someone else so I can spend my life with my queen.
To be happy with her when I robbed Jace of his princess.
My throat tight, I take a step towards him, but a loud buzzing freezes me in place. He stills too. Our hands are the only things that move, sliding slowly onto the hilts of our blades.
We are outside the wasp runes of Kholar. All it’ll take is one sting to kill us.
The irony of being killed by a wasp isn’t fucking lost on me. If I go out this way though, I’m murdering whatever asshole made this my fate.
“Do you see it?” I whisper to Jace, searching for it as well as I can without moving.
“No.”
It’s coming from –
As it bursts out of the foliage and flies straight at us, Jace draws the sword at his hip. I throw myself at him though, tackling him to the ground before the wasp can get in range of his attack.
“What the –”
