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“How can you feel what powers I have, Nik? That’s absurd,” I objected.
“Dark calls to dark, princess. And before you fight me on this, let me just ask you, how does my darkness feel to you? When I take you into the space between and you are consumed by my shadows, how does it feel?”
I thought about his question, tearing my eyes from the blank wall and looking over at him. His hair was rumpled from running his hands through it.
“Well, that one time, when I didn’t let you touch me, it felt turbulent. I felt like I couldn’t control what I was doing, and it made me feel a little shaken up,” I said.
He turned toward me and took my hand in his, rubbing his rough palm over the top of my smooth skin. His skin was more olive-toned than my golden hue.
“And when you let me touch you?” he pried.
His shadows of darkness began to creep out of the alcove of his body. Tendrils of black nothingness danced at our feet, moving up my legs. I closed my eyes, embracing the darkness enveloping me, and thought about how I felt.
“It feels…cool but not cold. Silent but comforting. Almost inviting, like it wants me to stay.” I thought of my bed again. I felt so drained. “I feel like I could pull a blanket of the shadows up to my chin and just sleep for hours,” I finished, opening my eyes.
We were surrounded by pitch black total darkness. His deep green eyes tethered my existence in the vast sea of nothingness.
“No one without powers of darkness would say what you just said. They could not feel the way you feel right now, princess.”
“And what if I say that I don’t care? That I don’t want to be a part of whatever this is with you anymore?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.
He dismissed the shadows surrounding us, and we were once again in my room. He dropped my hand and walked toward my balcony.
“It’s not just you that the prophecy is about. It’s me, too. I’m the King the prophecy foretold. I’m just as in this as you are,” he said.
I’d run the words of the prophecy through my head over and over again. I’d assumed, I guess without really realizing it, that the other part of the prophecy had been about Nik.
“Whatever you may feel, or not feel, about me, Alarie, it doesn’t matter. Because this isn’t aboutus. This is not about me, and this isn’t about you. This is about what prophecy has foretold will save our people and our magic from dying. Are you willing to turn your back onthem? Are you willing to sit by and let everything we are fade into nothing?” he growled in his deep voice.
“Who else knows?” I asked quietly.
“Those on the High Council who did not already know were told about the prophecy before the Choosing,” he answered.
“Can no one else know?” I asked, trying to keep the pleading from my voice. I could already feel the loneliness of my destiny weighing on me.
“The fewer people who know, the better. The more they know, the more they are put at risk of being used by Vandros,” he said.
And then, as if he had predicted my next question, he said, “Cass cannot know.”
“Why?” I pushed. I could see the reason in keeping someone like my mother in the dark for her protection, but Cass didn’t need my protection. “He is Commander of the Northern Forces. He has sacrificed more for this war than perhaps any single person in this Kingdom has,” I said, defensively.
“My concern is not for the Commander’s loyalty to our cause. It is his loyalty toyouthat is the issue. He loves you. He loves you so much that there is no way he cannot let it taint his mission in this war, which, as you know, is vital. You are a tool in this war, Alarie. The most important one there is. Prophecy says you will save the magic and our people, and it is my duty to do whatever I need to do to make that happen.”
“It would be painful for…someonewho cares for you to see you in such a light and would be perhaps impossible for someone like the Commander who loves you. I know already that he does not care for our training sessions, although he has said nothing. What do you think he would do if I needed you on the front lines of the battlefield with me? Do you think he would be able to prioritize anything above you?”
Nik’s words felt like he had raised his hand and slapped me on one cheek and then turned my face and slapped the other. Although I already knew it to be true, the reminder that the Prince viewed me as nothing more than a tool served as a reminder of how truly alone I would be in this mission.
And then there was the painstaking realization that Nik was right about Cass. Cass had not said the words yet, but I knew he loved me. And his love for mewouldtaint his vision of what needed to be done as Commander. The stakes were too high. For Cass because he’d worked his entire life to become Commander. I would not let him jeopardize his future for me. And for all of Valencia, if Nik and I failed at our mission.
Nik left me with my thoughts, disappearing into his darkness once more.
35
Alarie
Cass sat in his chair across from me at the smaller dining room table adjacent to my kitchen. For better or worse, everyone had given me the night to myself following the Choosing. I found Cass at my front door this morning, and after giving me a quick kiss, he moved into the kitchen and prepared a hearty breakfast for me.
I picked at the food remaining on my plate, which was most of it. I’d been unable to find much of an appetite. We had eaten in near silence.
