He shook his head. "You wouldn’t have."
"Do you think me that naive?"
He did, but not in the ways she was thinking. She was naive and innocent like a youngling with a fresh perspective, thinking there was good in everyone and everything—he was sad, however, because every day he saw that innocence diminish. "No, I don’t. I didn’t want you to know. I took care to hide this part of myself from everyone—including you. I didn’t want you to find out… so you wouldn’t."
At this, she turned to stare up at him. Her tone turned hard, and the wind turned harder. "Until you decided otherwise." She exhaled sharply. "Sometimes, I hate myself. I think that a part of me was growing to trust you all, which is foolish, because of what you’ve done. But did I really have another choice?" She hugged herself, and she looked so small with the wind battering against her, making her wobble.
Graves didn’t know what to say to her. All his words showed up only when she was near, but now, they had left him again, and he was speechless.
"Nothing to say? I’m not surprised, Graves." Luella’s eyes narrowed, and even angry, she was tempting. Even as a tempest, she was a temptress. "No, I’m sorry. It’sSorren, is it not? Sorren Graves Damaris," she enunciated. "The Prince of the Fallen Isles, and the liar whom I cannot escape from."
The wind whipped her hair, and in that moment, she looked nothing short of the prophetic being she was.
"Luella,please, forgive me—" Graves started. She couldn’t do this. Not here. She could not bring chaos to the Isles. To hisfamily. He’d caused enough anguish to them to last centuries. They didn’t need more devastation. How could he tell her this without making her ashamed of who she was, or ashamed of her rage and godsdamned righteous fury?
He wanted her to let it out, to let it free. To be who she had never been allowed to be, stifled by her false home.
"I don’t know if… I’ll ever forgive you for this," she said. "You’re a liar. You lied to me. It’s one thing to aid Vale in taking me as Serpentis’s war prize. At least, then, when I thought you were the villain, I knew where we both stood. But now? After you’ve tasted my lips and called me your sweetheart, the lines have been blurred, and captor and captive don’t fit us anymore. They haven’t for a while…"
The acerbic bite of her words lanced against him. She continued:
"You had to go and make me believe I was more than a prisoner, more than what I have always been. I’ve always been a prisoner. To my parents, to my life, to lies. And if there’s one thing I hate, S-Sorren, it is lies."
Luella stumbled over his name, and that was his undoing. The hesitation—the regression back to the heirus Princess she’d been in the dungeons, stumbling and small, beaten down. She had been bruised and hurt long before they’d taken her.
In one swift move, Graves fell to his knees on the cliffside, hands palm-up on his thighs. He didn’t touch her, he didn’t breathe. He just watched.
Her throat worked as she stared down at him. "What are you doing?"
"Whatever you want me to." The ends of his wings brushed the pebbles on the ground, and rocks dug into his knees. "Curse me, spit at me, throw me over the edge. Just don’t hate me—not for this."
Not when he hated himself enough for them both.
"How many lies have you told?" Luella asked softly.
"You know everything now. There’s nothing more," he rasped. He hid nothing from her now, save the reason for his leaving. He would tell her if she wished, but gods, it would hurt to dredge up those memories.
She searched his face. "How many other names do you wield?"
"Only one."
"Say it."
"Sorren Graves Damaris," he uttered into the windy night of his home.
She exhaled, and the salt air beat against his kneeling body.
"Luella," Graves said, "the only name I ever want you to call me is the one you know. I’ve always been Graves. That’s not changed."
"You’re wrong, because the Graves I knew was a lie. Lies, of which I don’t know if we can come back from." Her voice grew soft, the fury leaving her as echoes of lightning touched the sky. "I-I’m sorry. I cannot?—"
Luella turned away from him and the cliffside—and left him kneeling there.
The sight of her leaving was one Graves didn’t think he’d ever forget—and one he never wished to see again. Even as she walked away, he couldn’t help but be proud of her, for standing firm in her choices, for the softly strong female she was becoming.
37
YOU ARE LOVED
