“Without you…while they prepare you to take the throne?” I didn’t want to have to say it.
He should have been the one to tell me, but it didn’t seem he intended to at all. Lioran looked at the blades of grass beneath his feet.
“Have you already chosen your bride?” The tears wouldn’t stop the moment they started.
“No.” His voice grew unsteady.
“When were you going to tell me?”
“When I exhausted every possible solution. When hope was gone entirely. Until then I thought it was better if only I was breaking…but you knew.”
“I heard it all,” I finally admitted.
He looked back up at me. “I’m so sorry.” His shoulders rounded. “I couldn’t break your heart, especially if I didn’t have to.”
“In what world do you think you don’t have to?” I scolded him.
He cupped his hands around my face. “I need you. Only you.” I slipped back out of his grasp. Too many could stumble upon us and see.
“I’m not yours to keep.” I lifted the bow. It quaked in my grip. Anger boiled within me, but it wasn’t all his to claim.
Fate would destroy me.
It had always intended to.
I had no control of what the future held, but for now, I would keep him just a little longer. “I love you,” I whispered. “I will always love you. The stars gave me something beautiful, and I will never stop thanking them for every single moment.”
“I love you,” he said, but his voice carried as if he didn’t care who heard. “And I will never let you go.”
“Tonight, you don’t have to,” I said.
Chapter 25
The road to the High Court was long, winding through forests and quaint villages. It would take days to reach the palace.
Birdsong woke me. I stared up through the canopy of leaves overhead. As I gently lifted Lioran’s arm off me, he shifted. A soft groan escaped his lips.
I studied him, memorizing the freckle by his eye, so soft and faint it was barely visible.
We had only one day left until we reached the High Court.
My few important possessions lay packed beside me. I would not go back to Lythira. Juniper emptied my room before we left. She prepared the chambers for his wife while I bathed. Everything was brought in fresh.
I asked her to.
They didn’t wait for me to leave—I told her not to.
The preparations were done in silence. Lioran wasn’t told. He would never let it happen if he knew.
I needed to watch. I needed for it to break me.
So I’d remember—he wasn’t mine to keep.
Blades of grass crackled beneath my boots with each careful step I took toward Gaia. I was desperate to feel her warmth—for her to ground me. She settled in my touch as my fingers slid down the bridge of her nose. I loosened the rope that held her still.
In my mind I told her to go to the pond, she trotted ahead without another command.
Veylar’s breath blew, its stark cadence startling me. He pawed the dirt. As I released him from the long lead, a chill gushed through me—it wasn’t mine, it wasn’t Gaia’s. This was new.
