Page 39 of Chaos and Crowns

Antony paused at the edge of the bed, smoothing over the pile of blankets covering Odelle with fidgeting hands, but he didn’t sit down.

“I’m sorry.” Antony’s voice was quiet as he spoke.

“Sorry?” Odelle echoed in confusion. “Antony, you saved my life—twice now. What do you have to be sorry for? Besides leaving my coat and dress in the back of a random cab, that is. That’s the second coat I’ve lost in as many weeks, and I’m not made of money.”

“I only had to save your life both times because I messed up.” Antony looked dejected as he spoke. “If I had been a better fighter, I would have been able to drive off the Shadow and prevent the portal incident, but instead I was the one laying on the ground while you saved me. And today? A Warrior or even a Defender would have seen the Shadow before it could lay a finger on you.”

“Antony, you can’t—”

“It’s like I told you months ago, a woman like you…” Antony barreled on, trembling fists clenched at his sides. “You shouldn’t be with somebody like me. You should have somebody brave and strong, who doesn’t get all the people he cares about killed.”

Odelle frowned. She didn’t remember Antony saying anything of the sort.

“I knew it was better to stay away from you, and it didn’t seem hard to convince you, either. You stormed away on Christmas before I could even explain myself and have avoided me ever since. I told myself it was for the best. But then you turned up here, asking for aid with the Shadow, and I couldn’t help myself. I kept indulging myself, telling myself that I could help with the crown—it’s my area of expertise, after all. But today proved I was right all along. I can’t fight to protect you. You deserve somebody who can.”

Odelle had thoroughly lost the thread of this conversation. Maybe her brain was still moving slowly, frozen to a halt by the cold from the river and had yet to restart. It sounded, though, like she and Antony had very different opinions on what was happening between the two of them.

“You thought…you turned me down when I kissed you because you thought I should be with a Warrior?”

Antony nodded dejectedly. “Or at least somebody who could hit a Shadow on the first dagger throw when you were in danger. You hadn’t known about us for that long, and I thought you would assume I was more capable in a fight, like the rest of the Eteria. I felt like I was luring you in under false pretenses. And then you stormed off so quickly, I thought you must have agreed with me—that it was a mistake to kiss me in the first place.”

“I stormed off because you said I was beneath you. You told me that you couldn’t be with a normal human like me!” Even as Odelle said it, she realized that was not quite what he had said, and knowing Antony, it wasn’t something that he would say. As a reporter, she should know how dangerous it was to take a phrase out of context. Nora might have had a point about Odelle being too quick to judge.

It was Antony’s turn to look utterly bewildered. “That’s not what I said, was it?”

Odelle didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or scream in frustration at their idiocy. At her idiocy. Yes, Antony’s phrasing left something to be desired, but she had let her worries taint the situation, putting meaning behind his words that hadn’t been there.

“Was…was that what you thought?” Antony asked, horror dawning on his face.

Odelle buried her face in her hands, not able to look Antony in the eye as reality crashed in around her. It had been far easier to be mad at Antony, to say he was the one who thought she didn’t fit in with the Eteria, than it was to face the truth. Odelle was the one who had been afraid she wouldn’t measure up. Her older sister had found her place in this world, and Odelle didn’t begrudge her that, but for the first time in a long while she had to grapple with her inadequacy. She’d always been pretty, popular, and a charismatic television personality, and the thought that she might not fit in with this fantastical force where her sister now fought wasn’t something Odelle could stomach. A choke somewhere between a laugh and a sob shook her shoulders as she reflected. She’d interpreted Antony’s words cruelly and stormed away before he could justify himself because she had twisted them to echo the fears already eating away at her psyche. She had made everything about her problems when it was actually his far more tragic history at play.

“So you’ve been avoiding me because…” Antony started before trailing off as if Odelle’s motives were a puzzle far more complicated to put together than her disassembled toaster.

“I was mortified.” Odelle buried her face in her hands. “I threw myself at you, and you basically told me we weren’t in the same league.”

“In my defense, I meant it in the opposite direction of what you interpreted,” Antony explained, as if it were somehow natural that the most powerful sorcerer in the world would tell a girl she was too good for him.

Odelle glared at Antony through her parted fingers.

“I turned out to be right,” Antony babbled on. “You’ve learned the hard way that I’m not capable in a fight. We can just pretend this—”

Odelle had heard quite enough of this insanity. She lunged forward and grabbed Antony by the front of his peplos, yanking so hard that he nearly tumbled onto the bed on top of her. He let out a soft oof that morphed into a throaty groan as she slammed her lips against his.

He tasted even better than he had on Christmas, sweet as sunshine and fresh as a spring morning. It was as if somebody had bottled the essence of the bright Sanctuary air into a person. One of Odelle’s hands remained fisted in his clothes while the other came up to cup the back of his neck, holding him hostage—not that he was making any attempts to escape. He let her lead the kiss for a moment until his surprise dissipated, and then he gave as good as he got, forcing her to pull back and catch her breath. Her heart pounded as if she had just run a marathon.

“So…you still want this?” Antony murmured, as if the way Odelle kept her lips inches from his, unwilling to put more distance between them, left any room for doubt.

A wry laugh escaped her.

“How can you have been alive for almost three thousand years and still be such an idiot?” She teased, fondness lacing her words.

“I prefer to think of it as having three thousand years of practice at being an idiot. And three thousand years of facing my shortcomings.” The glazed look in Antony’s eyes gave way to apprehension once more. He sat back on his heels, putting space between their lips once more, although he remained seated on the bed, kneeling where Odelle’s legs ended.

“How can you be all that you are and somehow still feel as if you can’t protect me?” Odelle prompted gently, unable to resist reaching out and stroking Antony’s bare knee. She pressed down the urge to insist that she didn’t need protection, as the past few months had demonstrated that everybody, including all-powerful immortal sorcerers, needed somebody to have their back.

“It’s because of what everybody says I am.” Antony hung his head, loose strands of copper obscuring his face. “I’ve been told that I’m the most powerful channel for the Light in existence time and time again, and yet the Eteria fell on my watch. I was there—our leader died in my arms, taking our hope with her, and all I could do was run away. Bring the Sanctuary to this pocket dimension to live on and face my failures.”

“You made the Sanctuary?” Odelle couldn’t help but ask, even as her heart broke at his words.