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I looked down at the golden thread shaping a sparkling star on his sleeve, evading those extraordinary eyes that never failed to cave in my lungs. “It was meant for me?”
“Yes.” His thumb brushed over my palm within the confines of our intertwined fingers. “One of the silken ribbons I used, I found many years ago. More than ten, to be precise, right here at the beach. It had slipped off the hair of the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.”
Tremors danced around my knees as if they wanted to bend beneath my steps. I remembered that day, back when I’d seen a white seagull…
No. A white dove.
“She spun so fast down by the bay, much to her nursemaid’s frustration,” Malyr continued. “When I shifted, right here on this cliff, my unkindness could not help itself. We turned and glided along the water, grabbing it with our claws before we carried it with us for reasons we did not understand. Could not with good conscience.”
My fingers curled into the contour of his muscled chest, the warmth emanating from him and his rhythmic heartbeat against my palm. “Do you remember the blue ribbon you cut at thekjaer?The one from the strange raven?”
“Mm-hmm.”
I breathed past the mounting pressure in my chest and slowly, so slowly, lifted my eyes to his. “Was it yours?”
He pulled me deeper into his embrace, our motions smooth as if we were water flowing down a stream. “Little dove, I think we both know the answer to that question now.”
The air grew dense with the scent of him—winter and lemongrass—reminding me of mornings I’d spent on his lap by his desk, practicing to write in Old Vhaer. “If I recall correctly, then you threatened harm to a certain body part of the man who dared to court me. I believe the wordballswas used… Something about cutting them off and feeding them to your ravens.”
The corners of his mouth twitched, twitched some more, then lifted into what had to be the most defined smile I’d ever seen on his face. “I daresay,anoaley, you have been doing a mighty good job at castrating me, determined to avoid this bond at all costs.”
A faint little laugh escaped me. “Until now.”
“Until now,” he whispered, our bodies moving as one, the distance between us measured in mere breaths. “There is no telling how fast our gifts will amplify or by how much. I would like to… pour some of my shadows into your void now. A precaution.” A beat, and then, “May I?”
“Always.”
Shadows swirled into me, caressing my heart before they disappeared into my void. The longer they poured, the tighter Malyr held me against him, his voice shaking with the pummel of his breaths when he said, “Thank you.”
“Please make my mate a void,”Malyr’s childhood prayer resonated my head. “My very own void, who will relieve from my shadows.”Maybe saving a kingdom wasn’t my only fate? Maybe I needed to save its prince right along with it.
“Thank you for agreeing to my request to bond,” I said, the blood warming in my veins, thickening at the languid flow of shadows.
“See it as my atonement.”
“How so?”
“At first, I wanted to send you far away from me, even if it meant pain from not having you,” he said, his hand on the small of my back, pressing just enough to guide, not command. “Only having you by half will bring a different kind of pain. Either way, I am sure to suffer, yet it might never be enough to make up for the pain I’ve caused you, everything that I am truly sorry for. Therefore, I will bear it gladly.”
An act of such guilt, remorse, and repentance, it struggled to co-exist with those last remnants of hate I harbored for him. Not many. Maybe none at all. Not anymore, now that I finally understood the burdens he’d carried, the weight of shadows ever so cruel.
“How long until we leave for Valtaris?”
“I have a thousand men ready to depart at a moment’s notice,” he said. “Making the city habitable again will require time and hard labor.”
“You will need a coronation once you take the throne. What will you call yourself? King Malyr? King of Shadows?” When he only stared at me, I said, “There’s still time to come up with something. Do you think I can do it this time? Lift the shadows?”
Malyr’s hand wandered from my back to my chin. “If I had doubt in your success, I wouldn’t have agreed to bond.”
His faith in me sent a bright energy into my core, letting it glint off those shadows that continued to pour into my void. “I think we should do that now.”
He brushed his thumb over my lower lip, a gesture so intimate it drew my breath in short. “I believe it is already happening. I feel… something. Do you?”
I listened inside myself. Yes. Yes, I could feel it. There was a pull in my chest, an irresistible tug toward him—and not just physically.
Emotionally. Spiritually.
We became magnets, drawn inexorably closer until the space between us was no more. Our lips were inches apart, breaths mingling, hearts beating as one. The intensity of the moment, the surging heat and raw emotion, ripped a whimper from me.
