Page 111 of The False Vow

“Because it’s the last one I ever gave him,” I replied. “Because I wish to do one single thing right in his eyes.” Rain beat into my skull, drumming against my neck; I did not feel it. “He chose Clio over me, Noé. She tried to kill me—has tried to kill me twice now—and yet still, he accepts her stories, her truth, over mine. Because I betrayed him when I accepted your proposal, and she never has.” I hesitated, my sobs coming more freely. “Because, at his core, he has never thought me good enough to wed.”

It was true. Hadn’t Eliot told me himself, during the Vainglory, that he would never marry a silkwitch? Because of the way his kind treated us, he’d said then. Because he did not wish to be like his father, like the other Weavers he knew.

He’d changed his stance—but not for me.

“Why has he convinced you that you are not good?” Noé’s hand cupped my chin, tilting it gently up toward his. “Sweetheart, you have always been good.”

It was such a simple thing to say—so simple, and so wildly, terribly false. “I have not.”

At my answer, he dropped his head back, exhaling. “All right,” he responded a moment later. “You are mistaken, but, fine. You think it matters in the slightest to me what you are?” He shifted onto his side so that we were lying in profile, splayed out together in the middle of the road. “Before you, Lovett, I was nothing but a grudge. I existed solely to spite those who doubted me, so that I might hang my influence over their heads. When we first met, I saw how desperate Eliot was for you—sought you out during the Vainglory precisely because I knew what it would do to him, to witness me taking that which he wanted most. But you…”

He sighed, reaching to tuck a tendril of mud-spattered hair behind my ear. The brush of his fingers against my temple made my stomach clench—cold and warm all at once. “You are the only cause I have ever had,” he told me fervently. “Be my moral compass. Tell me right from wrong, and I will obey your teachings. Good, bad—whatever you name yourself, I will be also.”

I laid a palm on his face. “I am a deadly cause,” I said. “If you marry me, I will do everything I can to reveal the origins of Weavers’ magic. You will never have power, Noé. You will never be a sorcerer.”

Noé’s expression was pitying. “I have never been a sorcerer,” he replied. “All I have been is yours.”

I kissed him then. His lips were icy, frozen by the rain, but I leaned into them, letting his mouth numb my own. Both our clothes were soaked through, our skin like wax, bracingly cold. Around us, the storm beat, chilling us further with every second, and I could have lived in it—there in the mud, with my dress soiled and my hair a snarled mess—could have dwelled there quite contentedly forever, so long as I did so with him.

When we broke apart, his fingers were still knotted in my waves, my forehead braced against his. “I love you horribly, Lovett,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I can’t help it.”

I tucked my thumb below his bottom lip. “I love you, too,” I answered. My tears had stopped once I’d kissed him, but now they started up again, flowing in earnest down my face. “I don’t understand why. You’re the worst person I know.”

He laughed at that. “Come here.”

I did, shifting closer to him and slipping my knee between his. Pulling his head back, he nudged my chin higher, locking his gaze with mine.

“You love me?” he asked softly.

I nodded. At my response, something shifted in his stare—an opening, as if deep inside him, a key, long neglected, had finally been turned.

His smile was gentle, and I lost myself in it. “Then what have we to cry about?”

Chapter Forty-Eight

The next morning, on the dawn of my wedding day, the Weaver King came to take my hair.

I was seated at my vanity when he arrived. Despite the warm bath Mia had drawn for me upon my return to Fortblanche the prior evening, my face was paler than usual, the white of my skin undercut with blue as though part of me were still locked out in the rain.

The servants had attended to Noé and me separately after we’d gotten back. I’d spent most of my night in the care of the Alaires’ personal physician, alternately sipping on lukewarm broth and being chastised for my foolishness in walking home through the storm. When I’d finally been left alone, it was near dawn; I’d lain awake in my bed, reflecting on the events of the past hours.

I love you horribly, Lovett. I’m sorry. I can’t help it.

Bastian appeared behind me, pulling me from my thoughts. Mia had already combed through my hair, the strands she’d tugged loose as she brushed neatly gathered and bound in a tidy knot to my side. They would be ferried to the Alaires’ artisans’ workshop, where the hair would be spun into a length of magesilk—the very magesilk which would be placed in a seal after Noé’s and my wedding ceremony tonight, binding us together for eternity.

I’d say my vows, and he’d say his back, the magesilk looped around our ring fingers, connecting us…and then, once the ritual was finished, my magic would be his.

Would be, in theory, at least. In practice, Noé had promised to break his seal once it was forged, destroying the magesilk within and undoing the vow which bound my gifts to him. After last night, I trusted he’d abide by his word.

Mostly.

Lifting the knot of hair from my vanity, Bastian held it in his palm. “Well, my dear, have you made your decision? Which will it be?”

He spoke plainly. Meeting his gaze in the mirror, I answered. “I want a family.”

I held myself still as he rifled through my thoughts. I’d spoken truthfully; deep down, in the guarded, childlike part of my heart which I’d as of yet been unable to crush, I did wish for a family. For acceptance, and connection, and—honestly, I cringed to admit it—love.

I’d always wanted it. What I remained unsure of was whether I desired that family to be his.