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“Petra,” he finally said, and I stopped in my tracks. The forest had gone still, even the wild creatures ceasing their roars and shrieks as if they, too, were settling in for the truth.
I spun to face Belin, his eyes crystalline, his face illuminated just enough by the pearly light to see pain etched into his features. My instincts warred with each other, half of me wanting to scorch him to soot where he stood, the other half needing to reach out and touch him, make sure he was safe and whole. My fists clenched painfully at my sides as the battle raged.
“First, I need you to tell me,” I whispered, my fists releasing for only a moment, “was any of it real?”
I held my breath as something flashed across his face. Despite the tears that threatened to fall, my fire hadn’t gone out. I didn’t stop the burn.
Belin’s mouth bobbed open and closed as he wrestled with the question. “Yes,” he breathed, a sharp inhale following it.
I closed my eyes at the word, because I knew it was the truth. The fact that it had been real… I think that hurt me more than if it hadn’t been, because it meant that a part of him had loved me and still made the choice to hurt me. A part of him loved me and still made the choice to lie to me. I didn’t wipe away the tear that rolled down my cheek. I let him see it, watched the anguish it caused him as his eyes followed its trail.
“Since the beginning,” he said quietly, “you were my priority. Not Castemont’s plan. You.”
“Don’t,” I choked out. “That’s not true. Because if it were, I wouldn’t be standing here right now. I’d be back in Inkwell with my family, where I want to be.” My breaths came in quick heaves now. “I don’t know what thisplanwas, but I know that you are one of the reasons I lost everything.”
His head shook, despair etched in each of his features. “Before I met you, I agreed to Castemont’s plan. Get close enough to kill you. And if I killed you, the realm would be saved.”
My heart jumped into my throat, anger rushing through me hard and fast. “You were going tokillme?”
“No,” he stuttered. “Well, yes, in the beginning, but then I met you and–”
“You were going to kill me,” I repeated, my voice low, the flames burning hotter in my chest. I let them smolder to the surface, my hands beginning to glow with embers.
“I thought I was doing the right thing.”
All at once, my fire died. There wasn’t even smoke to prove that it’d been there at all. It was just gone.
The right thing.Hadn’t Miles thought the same thing? Hadn’t I thought the same thing? We thought that we were doing what was right, what would bring the most good. Right?
And who was the bigger fool? The one who did the right thing for the wrong reason or the one who did nothing at all?
The battle between hatred and longing, blame and forgiveness continued to tear me apart from the inside as I spun back to face him. “But youdied. Calomyr died.”
He gritted his teeth in frustration, fury setting his eyes ablaze. “I fell in love with you, Petra. That wasn’t his plan.”
“But how can you say that? How could you be in love with me and do that to me? Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” My voice had raised, assaulting the quiet forest.
“It’s complicated, I…” He took a step toward me and I instinctively stepped back. “The day after we spent the night in the castle, I told Castemont I was out.” I fought a rising blush at the mention of the night we’d spent in the King’s Keep, not knowing the whole time we were inhisquarters. “I’d known from the moment I met you at Cindregala that I wasn’t going to be able to kill you. The second you looked up at me… It was that moment I knew that I’d throw myself off the Cliffs of Malarrey if it would make you smile. I knew fromthat fucking momentthat I would die for you. I’d die if it meant you would be safe. I’d carry the weight of the world on my shoulders, Petra, if it meant you’d be able to walk tall.”
My gaze softened at the truth in his voice, the raw pain that he wasn’t trying to hide. “I told him I was done,” he continued. “Told him I was going to tell you the truth of it all.”
“So he killed Calomyr.”
“Yes, he killed Calomyr,” he answered.
“Why didn’t you…” I trailed off, too many questions fighting to be asked. He was theKing, why couldn’t he have struck Castemont down? Why didn’t he just come back? Why didn’t he–
“I’ll explain everything, I promise. There are things I can’t tell you right now.”
The words made my anger flare. “Are you serious?”
“I shouldn’t even be speaking to you, but I have to. It’s worth the risk.” I saw his fists clench and relax at his sides. He was telling the truth. Something was stopping him from explaining. “The day Solise left Eserene,” he started, his words fast, “Tyrak wasn’t the one to help her load her belongings and escort her to the gates.”
I squinted my eyes at the sudden change in subject, but let my mind materialize the memory around me. We had been standing in Solise’s living room. Castemont had arranged for guards to escort her from Eserene to Skystead to care for her sister. Tyrak… It had been Tyrak. I saw him with my own two eyes. He’d been shuffling in and out, loading boxes and crates onto the cart that waited in the dank Inkwell street. He’d looked back at me while he steered the cart away with Solise on the back. The guard had been in full armor, larger than life with gloves and a helmet that covered his entire head and–
I gasped. “It was you.”
“I begged Castemont to let me see you for two years, just to make sure you were okay. He’d tell me you were fine, you were moving on with your life, but I needed to see you.” He took a step toward me, and this time I didn’t back away, let his familiar smoke and cedar scent permeate my senses for the first time in so long. “You were thin,sothin. And so pale.” His throat worked as he swallowed hard. “I tried to show you the truth that I couldn’t tell you. That’s why I left your father’s cloak in the cave for you to find. I was praying that it would be enough of a sign to make you question Castemont.” He shook his head at the memory, the look on his face almost excruciating to see. “I had to try something. You were wasting away and it was because of me.”
