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“Were you going to tell me?” she asked at last.
Gil—Gaius—hesitated. “I wished to.” Yet that wasn't an answer, not truly.
“You kissed me.” She'd already said that, but her mind circled back to it without cease.
“Yes.” He'd said that before, too, but this time, his voice softened. Worry creased his brow, the most expression she'd seen from him since he'd stepped from that room.
She tore her eyes away and stared at the carpeted floor beneath her feet. A thousand questions warred for the right to leave her tongue. In the end, none of them did.
For a time, the hall was quiet. Rilion had gone; Ina had never resurfaced.
Just when she thought she could bear the silence no more, he spoke.
“For years, I have pieced together bits of information, locating the man who had my father and brothers killed. His last attempt was reckless, and now I know where he is. I depart for Angroth in the morning. Regardless of what happens to me, Rilion will see that you are given a home and a chance to start over.”
Thea couldn't find her voice. All she did was nod.
“Had I the power, I would wipe clean your slate and let you return home to Kentoria, but I cannot promise that. This situation—I spent years building it, knowing my family's killer would eventually come for me. The staging is precarious. I cannot reveal myself now, and I cannot guarantee I will live long enough to do so in the future.”
Absolving himself of responsibility. Asking her to understand, without telling her anything of substance. She should have been angry. Instead, she was only hurt. “You would go alone?”
“I have reached the end of Rilion's goodwill, as I have exhausted the goodwill of others I once considered allies. My fight has cost others a great sum. He will not accompany me.” He spread his hands, resigned.
And he would not stay to explain. The need to understand pricked like a thousand needles, but Thea could not make herself ask.
Somehow, her silence told him everything. The corners of his eyes grew pinched. “I cannot ask you to go with me. I cannot guarantee your safety outside Danesse. You saw the raiders in the outpost village. I have no doubt they were meant to look for me.”
Knowing who he was, that did not come as a surprise. “And what if you didn't ask?” By the Light, what was she suggesting? She hardly recognized the words coming out of her own head. He'd crushed her. Hurt her. Misled her the whole way. Going with him was out of the question. She was supposed to stay here, to start over, to forge a new life. Life was all she hadleft.
Yet after coming so far, it seemed a minuscule thing to risk. She had reached her destination, but there was nothing for her here. No home. No friends. Only a hope those things might eventually be—that she might still have the will to seek them after watching her heart walk away.
The realization hit her like a slap in the face.
“Take me,” she whispered. “Take me with you.”
“Thea—”
“Don't leave me here. Don't leave me behind. Not after everything we've been through.” Tears hung on her eyelashes and she fought to hold them back. She didn't want to cry. Not now, of all times, when she wanted to be strong. So many times, she'd given up her fight. She would not crumble now.
He stepped closer. The movement was halting at first, as if he was uncertain it was what she wanted. His second step was more confident, but his words were not. “I thought you wanted this. To be here, to start over—”
“I want you,” she blurted.
Gil's shoulders slumped. “I cannot promise that. I cannot promise I'll survive what I must do. How can I give you what I do not know I will possess?”
She couldn't stop the tears. They grew thicker, blurring her vision. After all they'd done, how far they'd gone, why was she still so weak? “Then give me what happens before then. The you here, now—”
He swept in before she could finish and dropped a kiss upon her mouth.
Thea molded herself against him as his arms curled around her body, sliding her hand through the short hair on the back of his head. This was what she wanted. Where she belonged.
His arms were home.
“I dared not hope,” he whispered.
Neither had she. She scrubbed tears from her eyes with the heel of her palm and rested her forehead against his. He was too tall; he had to bend forward just so she could reach him, yet he bowed when she pulled him down as if he would have gone anywhere she desired. “I want this to be real.”
“I am the king,” he replied. “When we return, I can make it so.”
