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Chapter Fifty-Five
Zaina
Isink onto the edge of the plush mattress in the room I share with Einar, massaging my temples while he lies next to me with his arms folded behind his head.
For all his impression of nonchalance, the muscles in his biceps are clenched.
We haven’t spoken more than a handful of words since I revealed myself to Remy, since I went to retrieve Aika on nothing more than his dubious word.
I am the one to shatter the deafening silence now, but not in the way I intend to. “I can’t believe that after everything, she thinks I hate her.”
My voice is more raw than I mean it to be, and Einar shifts.
“She doesn’t think you hate her.” He sighs. “She just doesn’t think she’s important to you.”
Something in his tone feels pointed and I snap my head up, observing the tight set of his mouth and his carefully guarded eyes. “A feeling you sympathize with.”
It’s only a guess, but I know I’m right when he doesn’t argue. My chest tightens, and traitorous tears prick behind my eyes.
“The ability to compartmentalize is a good quality in a queen.”
I scoff softly. “Just not in a person.”
He holds my gaze. “No. In a person, too, when it’s necessary. You just don’t always shut it off, the way you focus on a single thing to the exclusion of everything else around you.”
Everyone, he means.
“You think it’s my fault that she wishes I was still dead.” My voice wobbles on the last word, and I abruptly close my mouth.
“I’m sure she didn’t mean that.”
“You can’t know that,” I whisper.
“I can,” he argues. “I saw her grief firsthand. And besides, I know another woman who sometimes says hateful things when she’s backed into a corner.”
I turn to look at him, forcing a tiny smirk to my mouth.
“Well, I would say I’m sorry, but queens don’t apologize.”
He shakes his head, a huff of laughter escaping his lips, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Nonetheless, I accept.” He stretches his arm out in an invitation and a truce.
I nestle against his chest, allowing myself to take solace in the way my head rises and falls with each of his breaths.
“As you know,” he says abruptly. “Kings don’t apologize, either.”
“But if they did?” I ask.
“If they did, I might explain that even though I pushed for us to do this, even though I have nothing but faith in your brilliant mind and your deadly skill, it would still be hard for me when you put yourself on the line so recklessly, every time.”
“I know you’re worried about our plan, but now that Aika — and hell, Remy, are around, you could still take on Madame if something happened to me. Our people would still be safe.” I trace the lines of his chest and abs with feather-light fingertips.
He lets out a long, exasperated breath. “It’s not just about the plan, Zaina. Don’t you understand that it will never be easy for me to watch the person I love most in the world put her life on the line? And that it’s markedly harder when you treat your life like it’s expendable, like,” he pauses, his jaw clenching. “Like, if you died, it wouldn’t kill me, too.”
My breath catches in my throat, and I swallow.
The last thing I want to do is hurt him. I wish I could tell him that it changes everything, that I will be more careful, more safe, more… something, but all I can give him is the truth.
My truth.
“I love you too, Einar. That’s why I will do anything to see us on the other side of this.”
“I do know.” He tightens his hold on me, like he can keep me in this world through sheer force of his will. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
