“Is that what you think? That I love you because of destiny, because fate forced my hand?” He lets me go, rocking back on his heels. Putting torturous distance between us. “Even now, you think that?”
I shake my head, furious with myself for hurting him. “No. I don’t…I don’t know…”
“Sylvie, you are my wife. Mywife. I have told you why I love you. I have told you what you mean to me. But I’ll tell you again. I’ll say it a million times; I’ll say it every minute of every day. I’ll tell you over and over again until you believe me.Pleasebelieve me. Maybe this power drew me to you originally, or maybe I chose you with my own actions before you were even born. I don’t know. But it didn’t show me who you were. You did that. When I say you’re the most incredible woman in the world, I’m not exaggerating. I’m not delusional. I mean it, truly.Youare the good that I see in the world. You are the beauty. You are the warm light of my day and the comforting darkness of my night. You are in every part of me, in every corner of my soul, in every pore of my being. The dawn and dusk of my existence. Youareme, my own soul in another body. When I tell you that I love you, I don’t say it because it’s part of some cosmic plan. I don’t care if it is or it isn’t. I don’t care if loving you brings the world to an end; I love you because I can’t help it. I love you because it could not be any other way, not when you are who you are. I couldn’t have done anything different from the moment we met because you areeverythingto me. Call it destiny if you want to. Call it prophecy; call it fate. I don’t care.Thisis the only thing that I know, the only thing that matters.” He takes my head in his hands. “Sylvie, Iloveyou.”
I can’t do this. I can’t walk away from him when I know I feel the exact same way. It didn’t matter how much I fought it, how hard I tried to keep myself from getting to know him, to stop myself from falling for him. There was no other way for it to go the moment our paths crossed. Even my mother knew it. “I don’t want to let you go,” I say through sobs.
“Then don’t. Don’t. We’ll find a way together, I promise. I promise you, Sylvie.”
I cry for a long time, letting him hold me, feeling guilty for taking comfort from him in this moment but being unable to let go. “If I decided that I had to go. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to, would you let me?”
He leans back and looks at me, his eyes red and nose running. I hand him a handkerchief from my dresser to wipe his face, and he smiles for the tiniest moment at the gesture. “Sylvie, I would never force you to stay for any reason. But—and I hope you’ll forgive me for this weakness—I would beg you not to.”
“Ronan.” I take his hands, and he chokes, his head turning away. “Ronan, I love you more than anything in this world. More than my own life. But not more than yours. I will never stop fighting for you. I’ll do everything in my power to see you on the throne again. But I won’t let you die, not when I have the power to save you. I know you will never walk away from me. So that’s why I have to be the one to go.”
In the end, Ronan doesn’t beg. He looks at me one last time, his heart shredded, his soul broken, and he just says, “Please.”
And it’s almost enough to stop me. It’s almost enough to make me give in, to give up what I know is the right thing to do. I want to tell him I’m sorry, that he’s right, and there must be some way around this that we can find together. I want to take back everything I’ve said and let him take me in his arms. I want to hold him and never let him go.
But I can’t. There isn’t much I can do right now to help him, but I can do this. I can be the one strong enough to walk away.
And there’s another thing I can do for him. Something only I can do, but I’m going to need a little help.
I leave Ronan there before I can change my mind, throwing some things into my satchel without any real thought, unable to look back at his heart-broken face.
Then I storm to the other cottage and knock loudly on the door.
“What’s going on? More assassins?”
“Yes,” I tell Seth. “It’s us. It’s time for us to kill our sister.”
Chapter Forty
Ronan
She is gone, and my hope is gone with her.
Chapter Forty-One
Ifill Seth, Quinn, and a still-bedridden Taran in on what happened in the tomb while Seth packs.
Of the three of them, only Taran understands why I made the choice I made. We have always agreed on keeping Ronan alive as our top priority, and I’m grateful to have at least his support.
Even though Quinn doesn’t understand, she doesn’t argue with me for long. Instead, she helps me cut my hair.
“Are you sure?” she says, holding up the kitchen shears to the length we’ve cut the burnt section to. It’s between my chin and my shoulders, and it’s as short as I’ve had it since I was a child.
“Do it.” I close my eyes, unable to look as she hacks away. My head feels lighter and cooler as thick sections of brown waves fall to the floor.
“Damn,” she says when she’s finished. I still haven’t managed to open my eyes yet.
“That bad?”
“No. Not bad at all. If anything, you’re hotter than ever. Don’t let Ronan see you like this before you go. It’ll break his poor heart even worse.”
It really might. I know he loves my hair, but if we’re going into Faros, I need to do my best not to be recognized.
I squint my eyes open. At first, I’m appalled. My face looks so round, and my neck? “Is my neck too long?” Has it always been this long?
