Why did he make it sound like she was insulting him? “Of course it has—for all of us. We were slaves, in case you’ve forgotten. Forced to control the Ring of Flame in exchange for water, food, and clothes. Never digging our hands into fresh-tilled earth, never breathing cool air, never seeing the flaming stars. How could that be anything but bad?”
He was utterly still, aside from the strands of straw-colored hair that blew gently in the heatwaves. “All these years, and you still haven’t come to terms with what you are.”
“Says the man who refused to believe he wasn’t the daemon Axel called him.” She spun toward the lava and considered leaping in, letting it carry her to the others. But maybe it was time they settle this between them. “Helviti is not who I am. It isn’t who any of us are.”
“Isn’t it?” He clenched his fist, and the volcano rumbled. “Maybe not. The same way the sea is not King Seidon. The way the wind is not Queen Arden. The way the snows are not Valkyrja. But it is a part of us, and we of it. Or at least…” He turned, veins definitely aglow. “Of me. But you have your choice. I’ll not stop you from making it.”
She growled, knotting her fingers in her hair and tugging, as if that could release the tension inside. “Why are you doing this? Making it feel like if I choose something else, something for thegood of our entire kingdom, that I’m rejecting the family you’ve built?”
“Because youare.” He slashed a hand through the air. “Don’t you hear yourself? The familyIhave built. What about you? You have been a part of this family longer than you were the one you had Above. You were married to Tristan for three years—you’ve been here nearly thirty. But you would abandon us at the first opportunity, especially when it benefits them.”
“He’s my son! Can’t you understand that? Yes, you’ve welcomed me as a brother would—”
“I never wanted to be your brother, Elianne.”
At first, they sliced like an insult, those words. Dug into the wounds that she had never let heal, the gaps where she’d kept herself apart from them. Never letting them in, never giving herself over to the magic that would have made her more of what Isidor wanted, less of who she’d been.
Then he took a step closer, and she realized what he meant when his gaze dropped to her mouth. When his hands found her arms again. His voice came so quiet, so low that she felt it as a vibration more than she heard it. “Choose him, if that is what you must do. Nikanor. Stefanos. The memory of Tristan. It is your choice to make. But I would have you know what you’re rejecting. Not just Helviti.”
“Dae.” Her heart twisted, so tight she felt the pang all through her body. He’d never…not once. All these years and not once had he treated her like anything but an annoying, disappointing little sister. Now he looked at her as though she were the spring of water after those days with none.
She leaned closer, even knowing she shouldn’t. His feelings couldn’t change the facts—and the fact was that she could make a real difference for everyone if she took Kyrja’s place in the betrothal. And she didn’t love Dae, not like that. He was herprimal, yes. Her teacher. The one she knew she could depend on, no matter what.
But she wouldn’t even have called him a friend, not in the way Tristan had once been, that Ember and even Logi and Eldrid were. Because he’d always been that step removed, gruff and stern.
Could it really have been because he was fighting this?
One of his arms came around her. The other hand cradled her jaw. And yes, heat raced. His, hers, the heady excitement of realizing that she was wanted, and it wasn’t for her blood or what she could do for him. It was forher. Her breath went ragged even before his mouth came down on hers.
She kissed him back, kissed him hard, ran a hand up the taut muscles of his neck, onto the shaved side of his head, into his hair. She pressed close and then closer still, coming up on her toes for a better angle.
Time had never meant much down here. Perhaps it had snapped back into alignment recently, but now it spiraled free again, and she went with it. For a second, an hour, an eternity, she was free. No obligations. No thought to salvation or condemnation. Just being. Being…loved? Is that what this was?
She broke away, stared at him. He couldn’t love her. Dae, for all his steadiness and loyalty didn’t love anyone, did he?
He stared right back. Sighed. Rested his forehead on hers.
It was her answer. She just didn’t know how to translate it. And couldn’t let it change her mind.
19
Kyrja slipped into the room, careful to keep to the shadows for now, so that her arrival didn’t halt the chatter of the dozens of guests she’d invited to the palace this morning. It was, on the one hand, a strange thing to choose to do today, when she had to give Stefanos her answer this evening, with anxiety swirling as to whether he’d accept Elianne’s offer to take her place.
It was, on the other hand, the most urgent thing to do today. To prove to the Aflame on her High Council, to the Blessed vying for the other six seats, to the Fjorders, to the thanes, toherselfthat she wasn’t just an upstart princess who’d out-iced her competition.
She was a queen. One with a vision for Fjordlandi. More, one with a vision to give everyone a voice in Fjordlandi.
Her gaze scanned the room, not at all surprised to find that, with a few exceptions, the crowd was segregated. The Aflame stood in their black-clad cluster in the corner, Daemon surveying the group as if he might set them all ablaze with his glare. The dozen Blessed who’d been hounding her congregated as far from them as they could get, wearing their gauzy pastels and looking superior. The Fjorders, all students orrecent graduates, clustered around Dania and Sven as he said something to them in an animated tone—always the professor. The thanes, the same thirty-six who had given her the roses at the Coronation Ball, tried to blend into the walls, and she had a feeling they’d only had the courage to show up at all because of the smiles of encouragement that Dania, their trusted family physician, kept sending them as she tried to wave them closer and they pretended not to see.
Kyrja drew in a long breath. Triremes encircled her land. None were in her territorial waters, but all were as close as they could come without drifting over the line with every wave.
She hadn’t even known Ellas had so many warships. And in this case, she didn’t think it was just her own ignorance. The Ellesians were at constant war with themselves—their four tribes hated each other even more than the Fjorders and thanes did—and how a single king ruled them all and yet brought no peace was an eternal mystery to outsiders.
But a blessing, so they didn’t ever try to intervene. Why would they? Peace within Ellas would mean the warriors would turn their attention outside their own country.
Like now. Apparently without even knowing it, she’d given the feuding groups a reason to unite.
Sixteen days. That was how long she’d been queen. And in that time, she’d managed to dismantle centuries of tradition—corrupt tradition, granted, but still—and deliver her people to the brink of a war that could annihilate them. If those triremes aimed their cannons at Fjordlandi’s domes, it would mean extinction, unless other kingdoms intervened. Those who weren’t killed outright would starve when the crops failed.
