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One that stirred the curiosity in my core. “There’s magic trapped inside?”
“That’s the mystery about it,” he said. “It is entirely empty at its core, with not a single shadow writhing within. Many a fate touched it, hoping for a vision, a flicker of magic. Nothing. It’s just… salt.”
That curiosity morphed into unease, reminding me of how fickle all this was, the union between a Raven and a human. “You want me to find it and return it to you… so you may give it to her one day.”
“I no longer have an interest in reclaiming it,” he said. “I was merely curious.”
Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. “Sebian told me how strong the pull is. Between fated mates.”
“I found it to be more than tolerable, almost forgettable, really.”
“Not on the day you tried to read up on it in the library,” I said, immediately noticing my mistake when Malyr stiffened beside me. “I walked in the moment you flew off, leaving books scattered about.The Endless Ache. Sebian told me what it—”
Malyr sealed his hand over my mouth even before his eyes widened, head snapping toward the rustling in the wetlands across from us. His arm wrapped around my waist, yanking me onto his body as he let himself plop with his back onto the ground.
“Shh…” His hush came with a blanket of shadows that settled over us, drowning out our surroundings. “Not a single sound, little dove.”
Startled by the sudden nearness between us, my heart thudded so hard, there was no doubt that he could feel its vibration in his ribs. I blinked through the pitch-black darkness, trying to get a sense of where his face was. Until my ears pricked at a shrill voice.
“Where is he?” The voice came muffled through the shadows. “He asked you to come here, didn’t he?”
Lorn.It wasn’t so much her voice I recognized, but the bite it carried, the taunting edge that never seemed to smooth away, no matter what she said.
“Why do you keep running to him, hmm? I am your mate!” the man’s shout, Lord Baradur undoubtedly, startled me enough that Malyr pressed his hand harder onto my mouth. “I have seeneverythingthey have done to you in that dungeon. Every beating. Every humiliation. Every. Single. Rape. And I love you no less for it. I admire your strength! I want you no less for it, Lorn, don’t you understand?”
“No,youdon’t understand!” she hissed. “Just because you saw doesn’t mean you understand. But he does. He does, because he knows what it felt like to lie beneath them, completely powerless, while they—”
Hands suddenly pressed down on my ears, muffling the words, distorting them beyond any recognition. Why? What was it Malyr didn’t want me to hear?
The longer I remained deaf, the tighter his shadows wrapped around me. Offshoots tangled around my ankles, climbed into my hair, wormed themselves beneath my skirts until they slowed. But the more they did, the harder Malyr trembled beneath me. He was struggling to hold them back, wasn’t he?
Slowly, so slowly, he lifted his palms off my ears just as the shadows lifted from around us, seemingly scattering into the night. He stared at me, his eyes crinkled at the corners in nothing short of concern. Did he fear that I heard? Heard what he didn’t want me to know?
“It is cold,” he said after a while. He slipped me off him and rose rather abruptly before he grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet. “We should wake Sebian so he can bring you back to your chambers.”
He’d already gotten in three hurried strides before I said, “What of our wedding?”
His feet stalled, but he didn’t turn around, standing there frozen. “What of it?”
I walked up to him. “How do I know that you won’t dissolve the betrothal the moment I free Marla?”
Long moments of silence lingered between us. “Did my oaths sound insincere?”
“No.” Which made them all the more suspicious. And even if he truly meant them, I wasn’t exactly short on other concerns. “But what happens on the day you find your mate? What will you do then?”
“I cannot find what I am not searching. I gave up on my desire to bond because I am not at all the man fate would have wanted me to become… your father made sure of that,” he ground out. “You said you hope that your actions added months to my time in the dungeons, but little dove, I never escaped them. They are with me, inside me, forever a part of me.” Another beat of silence. “I would rather suffer The Endless Ache than watch my mate endlessly suffer me. You, however, will.”
ChapterThirty-One
Sebian
Present Day, Deepmarsh Castle, stables
Pius gave a snort when I tightened the girth on his saddle, peeking his brown head toward it for a moment before the white blaze on his nose disappeared into the bucket of oats. Much to the frustration of the chestnut mare tied across, who banged her hoof against the wooden planks that separated the two, demanding a treat of her own.
“All tacked-up and ready.” I gave Pius a gentle pat on the neck before I clenched and unclenched my fingers, trying to force the bone-deep chill from my hand. Galantia would need good gloves and a warm cape. “Make sure you water him when he’s done eating!”
“I will!” Olivar said as he appeared from around the corner, the boy all but dragging a saddle over the straw-covered ground before he tried to lift the heavy thing over his head. “Just as soon as I… as I ready… ready—a”
