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“Lyr, stop. Please. I’m sorry,” he said. His fingers curled helplessly at his sides. “I know you’ve been hurt before. I mean, just earlier, when the Imperator had you up there, I knew exactly what he was doing behind your back, and you barely cried out. You barely reacted when it was over. You seem barely shaken now. I know you’re strong and resilient, but I also know it’s not the first time.”
“What happened to dropping this?” I asked, voice low. I closed my eyes, taking a breath before looking at him again.
“I told you before I wouldn’t push, like I just did, and I…I mean it,” Rhyan said apologetically. “I need to uphold my word. I owe you that much. I said I wouldn’t force you to tell me before you were ready. And despite my words, my offer still stands—I’m here for you, here to listen, here for whatever you need—anytime you want. But if it is Tristan doing this—”
“It’s not.”
“—I will end him.” He spoke the words quietly, without force, without aggression. He spoke with the same preternatural stillness he’d possessed when he’d first threatened to hurt Tristan—right after he’d seen my initial injuries from Meera.
But I knew deep down in my core that despite the fact that Rhyan and Tristan could never—should never ever—be left in a room together, this wasn’t about Tristan. It was about ending my pain. Rhyan, though I didn’t like how he was going about it, was on my side in a way so few people ever had been.
Tears fell down my cheek. I wanted to tell him. I wanted to offload the burden. I wanted him to soothe me and to understand and to stop the pain. It was what I had so desperately wanted for the last two years, but I couldn’t have it. Rhyan couldn’t help me in this. I’d never be able to tell him, I’d never have his comfort, I’d never be able to break my blood oath.
A long silence stood between us that Rhyan broke.
“You deserve better. And you deserve…you deserved to be asked one more time,” he said. He blinked like he was holding back his own tears. “I was there, Lyr. I was hiding my scars and wounds. I was lying to my friends and to my family, trying to protect the people around me who didn’t fucking deserve it—I was trying to preserve the honor of my Ka. And then it was too late. And I wish—” His voice broke. “I wished that someone—anyone had circled back, hadn’t taken my word, hadn’t believed my lies, and had asked me—asked me just one more time if I was okay. Because I think if I’d been asked once more,” he squeezed his eyes shut, “I would have told them everything.” The words poured out of him in a hushed whisper.
Instantly, I was walking to him, and before I knew it, my arms were wrapped around him, my face pressed into his chest. He pulled me to him, one hand wrapped around the nape of my neck, the other low on my waist—carefully avoiding my wounds.
He breathed in slowly, his body shaking just a little before he relaxed. “I didn’t mean to push—”
“Rhyan,” I whispered, my heart breaking. “I know.” He’d been hurt, too, terribly and too many times. He’d been alone in Glemaria, hurting without anyone to protect him, lying to his friends and his family while his father had beaten his mother, beaten him, and left him to rot alone in a Glemarian prison. I just wanted to hug him, to hold him until his pain went away. And then I wanted to march to Glemaria to murder his father, to tear him apart limb by limb for every hurt he’d caused Rhyan. I held him tighter, rubbing my hands up and down his back. “I’m here for you, too.”
“Lyr?” he asked under his breath. “I know I’m asking too much. But, by the Gods, I have to know. Swear to me the truth. Is he hurting you?”
“No.”
Rhyan let out a shaky breath, his chin resting on top of my head. He was silent as I clung to him. “Is it someone else?” he asked.
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Lyr.”
“I swear, I have my reasons. Rhyan, trust me. Don’t ask me again.”
“Lyr,” he pleaded.
I pulled back, pressing a fist to my heart two times before I flattened my hand against my chest. It was the same gesture he’d made to me when I was in prison and he’d promised me protection, that he’d always keep me safe. “Me sha, me ka,” I said.My oath, my soul—the motto of Ka Hart, the one Rhyan had spent his life trying to live up to. “I swear.”
He shuddered as he pulled me back in and held me closer. “Okay,” he whispered against my hair, sounding heartbroken but like he’d finally accepted I wouldn’t say more.
I wrapped my arms tighter around him. His head dipped down as he gathered me against him. My face rested in the crook of his neck, and I inhaled his scent: musky and fresh, like the pine trees that filled the lusher, greener parts of northern Bamaria. His breath softened, and our breathing synced together.
“Why did you defend Tani?” he asked, his thumb rubbing across the back of my neck. “Why did you let her go?”
“Because when I confronted her, she said,” I pulled back, looking up at him, “she said she suspected something between us. And she knew we’d used kashonim.”
Rhyan released me from his arms. My skin tingled, my body suddenly cold without his touch. “Every time I try to help, to protect you, I only make it worse.”
“No, that’s not—”
He looked away from me. “If I really am going to keep my oath, to keep you safe and protected, I can’t keep doing this. I need to step away from you.”
“Step away how? By not talking to me again?”
He grunted in frustration. “I tried that. And I can’t not talk to you.”
“Do you want to….” I heard my voice get smaller. “Do you want to back out of our deal—of the extra training?”
