Everything was crumbling. Theodore and I lay twisted in the blankets, silent and stunned. His eyes fell shut as he pulled away from me and moved to the edge of the bed. His strong shoulders stooped. Guilt rose in me like bile. I understood so keenly now why Theodore had not been able to abide my lack of duty, my selfishness, and my cowardice. They were calamitous, and he had fallen headfirst into their depths.
The blood bond in my stomach rioted like I’d disobeyed it. I had caused him harm. My gaze slid to the severing draught on the side table, next to my ring. “Theo,” I whispered. “There was another line to the prophecy that I didn’t… I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. The last line was ‘What they have made will decimate the order of all things.’” Theodore didn’t move. “What Ligea and Nemea have made—me. I will ruin everything… I already have—”
“That’s enough,” he said softly. The shuddering silence stretched as Theodore rose from the edge of the bed. He retrieved clothesand dressed himself, face stern and body tense. Wrapped in a sheet, I pulled myself off the bed and made for the washroom with my head slung low. As I passed the side table, I reached for the severing draught.
“Stop.” The word landed like a punch. I whipped my head toward Theodore and his burning gaze. “You are so determined to believe you are some dark harbinger, some monster. I cannot believe—Irefuseto believe that knowing you, that binding myself to you—” He swallowed hard. “That… that caring for you could possibly be the cause of my ruination. But if you are to devastate me, then let it be completely. Lay waste to me and everything that’s mine. A life without you in it is not one I wish to lead.”
I held his impassioned gaze, my heart swelling and sinking at once. Words knotted on my tongue. “Think of what you are asking of me, Theodore,” I finally managed, my voice raw. “The people who would suffer if we stayed bound. The cost of it for your kingdom. I can’t fathom it.”
“I don’t have the solution yet. I don’t know—” He shook his head and gave me a crushing look of desperation. “Do you think we are fated to be as we always have been? You, blighted by fear, and me, devoutly, miserably dutiful. We were both fading away.” He crossed the space between us. “You have shone a light on me. You made me feel fury and terror and joy and longing. How do I curl myself back into the darkness after being so alive?”
My throat clamped around tears. Something cold and hard began to spread through my chest. Perhaps it was armor growing around my heart, or perhaps it was my heart itself, shriveling, calcifying, because I understood clearly what I had to do. And I knew just how awful it would be.
I took in his disheveled appearance, his waving hair that lookedvery much like my fingers had run through it all night. He did not resemble the untouchable king I’d first met. No, I had peeled back his defenses, and he had hardly put up a fight.
“We should hurry,” I finally managed. “Be sure to wear your crown.”
Lachlan and Agatha had not been in the hall when we emerged, and I thanked the bloody Gods. My wine-hued gown was wrinkled from lying in a heap on the floor all night. My hair was wild and loose down my back, and the severing draught in my pocket bumped against my thigh as I hurried along beside Theodore.
We reached the stairs that led down into the entry hall. “I should walk behind you.” Theodore stopped hard, affronted. “I’m worried enough about the empress seeing me trail you, never mind me walking at your side. I have a feeling about her… I think she knows who I am.”
His brow quirked. “Why would you think that?”
“I’ll tell you everything when the ritual is over.” I gestured toward the stairs. “After you.”
With the Great Gods’ statues looming overhead, and a deprecating look on his face, he started down the stairs. I kept ten paces behind. The sounds of the palace rose up around us. There were bustling servants and trooping soldiers and courtiers draped in jewels and finery. They moved about the hall in lovely bunches that reminded me of spring bouquets. Theodore reached the bottom of the stairs and lingered, looking up at me with scintillant eyes.
I shook my head at him. “This defeats the purpose.”
“I don’t want you behind me,” he said, in a low and too-fond voice. “I want you at my side.” Some kingly defiance straightened his spine. It told me he would not be bent by rules that displeased him. He would not be ordered to give me up by a council that he himself had appointed.
I blew out a resigned breath and his gaze fell longingly to my lips.
“You’re very beautiful.” His voice was a quiet rumble.
“You’re very foolish.” I glanced around us, remembering Lachlan’s warning to be discreet, then tried to smooth the deep creases in my skirt. “I look like I’ve been scooped up from the wildlands.”
He nodded his agreement. “Even so.” He tucked my hand into the crook of his arm. “It’s best to keep you like this, I think,” he said, as he led us toward the door to the garden. His gaze smoldered as it skipped over my hair, my mouth, the scoop of my neckline. “If I am made a fool by you like this, I’d be incapacitated to see you dressed as you should be.”
His attention forced a smile to my lips. “And how should I be dressed?”
“In a crown.” He held the door open and looked down at me. “Made with stones the color of honey to match your eyes.”
My heart quickened, even as I realized I did not want to be a queen. I did not want the neck-breaking weight of a crown—not as my father’s heir, nor my mother’s. I wanted to tuck far away from councils and wars and frivolity for something still and quiet and safe.
But perhaps, in another place and time, at Theodore’s side, I could bear it.
A cool mist swirled over the garden, dampening the bright blooms. It turned the paver stones slick beneath my slippers. Ashort path led us to a run of wooden stairs that dropped straight to the socked-in beach. Lachlan and Agatha stood away from the waves, speaking closely with Eftan. The chancellor looked particularly dour this morning, his hands clasped behind his back in balled-up fists. When he saw me on Theodore’s arm, his mood somehow darkened further, but Agatha’s eyes lit up.
She rushed to my side and took my hand, tugging me closer to the water. A small group of robed Obelian women huddled off to the side, preparing for their ceremony. “I’m so sorry.” Agatha held my hand tight. “I tore into Lachlan for barging in on you two like that. I’ll never forgive him for suggesting the council vote on your severance.” She stared out at the cresting waves, her look sober and dark. “You can’t let Lachlan decide for you. You have to make your own choice.”
I watched the water too. I could feel it breathe and pulse, a mirror of my own body’s rhythms. I guessed it was a mirror to Eusia’s too, wherever her split, decrepit carcass might be. “I understand Lachlan’s frustrations,” I said. “And the weight all this has put on him. Please, don’t let it topple what you two are trying to rebuild.”
She let go of my hand and scoffed. “It’s already toppled.” Her gaze was vacuous as she peered at him across the sand. “No. That gives the impression that it can be rebuilt yet again. It’s a heap of ash that sits between us, I think.” A gust tousled her curls, and she brushed them back with a sad smile on her lips. “We were a long time apart. We used to be complementary shapes, but now we don’t quite fit.”
An indescribable sorrow overtook me. “But you still love him?”
“Yes. I love him.” She swiped quickly at her cheek, at the tear she’d let slip her guard. She looped her arm through mine and squeezed. “That’s the worst of it.”
