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“What?” I couldn’t help but match his expression as I raised to get a better look at him.
“You could always seduce Tyr into helping us.”
“No,” I replied, waving my hand, ignoring the crescendo of his chuckle while I groaned. “I have little use for a narcissistic Sea General, no matter how trained...or handsome.”
Kalen rolled his eyes. Arguably, the Preserver was far more handsome anyway and I’d be distracted enough. But that wasn’t the reason I would deny Tyr’s aid.
For too long, Kalen and I had been at this alone. Leoth was my home, and I was at one point their champion, yet no one from my faction had laid eyes on me. I was a rumor. A ghost, when thousands of men and women sat ready in the Well, bound by duty to help preserve the Light and probably pissing mad that they’d been attacked and hadn’t had the chance to fight back. I knew I would be. Just the same, I knew that they would come to us if we called for them.
“We don’t need Merlords or Astralites or any of the Sage’s help for that matter. Not when we have an army.”
Kalen’s head cocked to one side. “You want Guardians?”
I pushed up on my hands, turning over so we were eye to eye. “Can you get word to Leoth? I know the Well is still recuperating, but it would be a death sentence to walk into Sythe without at least a ship full of our kind to fight.”
“It might be a death sentence anyway, you realize that right? And you would be asking every single one of our people to riskthat fate beside you.”
Kalen stared down at me, his gaze so intense and unreadable that I was afraid I’d said the wrong thing. That I had peeled back that layer of innocence, shown the wrongs I was capable of, and revealed the price I was willing to pay just to be myself again. Still, I would not lie to him. I would not be weak in my convictions for the sake of being good. I steadied my breath and set my jaw.
“Yes, I do.” Kalen’s expression banked and despite my internal pep talk, I rushed to defend myself. “Kal, this isn’t just about my soul anymore.”
The sheets of the bed wrapped tight around my body, I stood and began pacing the room, explaining to the walls because it was easier than facing the Preserver. “It’s become so much more about our faction, the Light, and the people who have fought for so long against her. It’s risky and it’s dangerous, but the Guardians already know that. They were in their own home when she first attacked. What difference will it make for them to risk death in hers?”
I had decided long ago, in the Well with Kalen, that I would fight to take the Light back, and when I did, the rest of my faction deserved to share in that victory.
“She took their hope from them,” I added, the heartbreak of that realization deepening as I remembered the bodies, and the broken pieces of our court we’d left behind. As I thought of Mirona.“I want to watch blood rain from the walls of Sythe. And I want it to be at the hands of our faction.”
The room grew silent and I winced with shame as I turned around to face whatever disapproving look was sure to be on Kalen’s face. But his arms were slung behind his head in leisure. Kalen was smiling.
“What?” I whined.
“You are so beautiful. Especially when you’ve got that lethallook on your face.” Kalen smirked as I laid back down on the bed, then added, “I will send word to Leoth in the morning.”
With my ear pressed against his chest, my heart thundered in time with his. My legs and arms began to tingle in a potent mixture of fear and excitement. With two of my stones, I recognized that buzzing beneath my skin as an old friend, one I’d met most often in the fighting ring. My fingers twitched against Kalen’s stomach, begging for the cool feeling of a blade in their grasp.
“The plan is a good one. Except I think you’ve forgotten one minor detail,” Kalen said, rubbing circles on my back.
I tensed under his touch. Usually, I enjoyed it when he was wrong, but I found no pleasure in telling him this time. I could never forget, though I might try. It didn’t matter where I was or what was happening around me. I was always thinking of my stones. Right now was no different.
“No,” I sighed. “I’m not.”
From the window, the night sky had grown dense with clouds that drifted quickly overhead. Now and then, the moon would appear between their mists, and silver light would stipple the waters beneath. The sea was calm, unhurried as it whispered onto the beach, an oscillating rush of sound that left me unnerved. It was calling out to someone, but not on this shore. My gut began to sink, to drown in the feeling. As I looked out across the Alto, imagining a place I once knew, I could feelherlooking back at me, the Shadow Queen. If it was even possible, the night grew darker.
I whispered to the shadow, in a voice dry as sand, “I know exactly where my last stone is.”
Sleep happened soundly. Well,as soundly as possible considering the threat of death hanging over my head and a rather enthusiastic lover in my bed.
The latter I welcomed, though Kalen would argue the right word wasencouraged. I couldn’t help myself, really. After seventy years of having no one to share the night with, there was something so invaluable about waking in the dark and knowing nothing other than that you were loved. Sometimes, we stirred just long enough to come together again, over and over until we weren’t sure the dawn would ever come. I would have preferred it didn’t.
Eventually, the dark purple shadows cast on our wall were washed out by cool blues and grayish yellows. I stared at Kalen now under a wondrous cast of orange. His arm fell across my stomach, left leg slung over mine under the sheets that rose just above my waist. Somehow my long hair had become tangled between his fingers, part of him still holding onto me while he slept. The morning sky was a pyre, burning out the sorrow of yesterday. Dust wheeled around us, catching the light.This is what happiness is, I thought to myself.
The stubble on Kalen’s chin scratched at my collarbone as he shifted around. My lips pulled back into a small smile when he looked up at me, one eye still closed against the light pouring into our room. Kalen moaned before he flopped his head back onto my chest, peppering kisses between my breasts, burrowing his head into the open space between my neck and shoulder. I reached my hand to his hair, threading my fingers through it and giving him a reassuring scratch. “We should wake up,” I cooed.
“No.”
“Alright. I made my best efforts.” Flopping my arms back down, I pretended to snore. Kalen pinched my nose, taking my breath.
When I startled, he chuckled groggily. “Are you so easily persuaded?”
