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I wasn’t going to accept that. “Now doesn’t work for me.”
His forehead wrinkled. “What do you mean?”
“We talk at your convenience, and I’m tired of it.” I pointed my finger at him. “You could have told Quinley that you needed a moment, but you didn’t. You brushed me off after telling me you had things to explain to me.”
“I had to.” He held out his arms. “She’s the head Winter High Court member. The worst thing I could do was brush her off, especially when she wasn’t happy with me.”
“I helped you during the trial.” I refused to allow him to ignore what I’d done for him as if it wasn’t important. “You might not have gotten up the canopy in time if not for me.”
He laughed, but it was dark and devoid of humor. “You think I don’t know that?”
“You said we were allies.” He was making it out to be more than it was. “Just tell her that. It’s not a lie.”
“It’s not just that, and we both know it.” His nostrils flared, and his voice grew louder. “I talked to her for you.”
Now, it was my turn to laugh. If he thought I would fall for that logic, I’d make him be the one to squirm. “Please, tell me. How was that conversation for me?”
He stepped toward me, his eyes blazing. “I’ll tell you, but you won’t like the answer.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Isnorted. Part of me winced at how classless the noise sounded, but I pushed that aside. He needed to know I was disgusted and wouldn’t be placated … to see my real self and not some version I pretended to be for him.
I squared my shoulders, facing him, and said, “I pretty much figured that I wouldn’t like it. Ever since I arrived in Talamh, it’s been bad news followed by worse news.”
The shadows hovered near him, not blanketing him but staying close as if a threat could appear at any moment. “If I could change things?—”
Here we went with all the flowery words that would make my heart sputter. “I don’t need pretty words—I need the truth. I’m so tired of dancing around the truth and everything that comes with it. So please, tell me how that conversation was for my benefit.” I didn’t give a frozen summer if please would make me owe him. I’d be dead soon, so it didn’t matter. “I need to hear the truth from you, Kieran.”
“You want the truth?” He laughed bitterly. His handsome face was striking as he stalked toward me.
My heart quickened with what should’ve been fear, but I knew it wasn’t. I wanted to be his prey and let him do all sorts of things to me.
“When you died, it broke me. I hated that I’d pushed you away … that I was the reason we weren’t together.” He grimaced and ran a hand through his hair, his fingertips gray from the shadow magic within him. “You were willing to risk everything to be with me, asking who we were to fight the connection between us. And I accused you of being selfish.”
The more I learned about my past life, the more I connected with that version of myself. My heart ached with the sensation from the memory. The intense feeling of being broken and unworthy of his love. I repeated words I’d said one lifetime ago. “Selfish is not being together. Playing it safe so our kingdoms aren’t uncomfortable was selfish. Not doing the hard thing to merge a fractured realm was selfish.”
“That’s exactly what you said then.” He winced, and his forehead creased. “I thought you were just saying that until I lost you. When you died, I realized you were right. I was afraid of upsetting my people and not being recognized as their rightful new king. That was such a foolish concern because I’d already been crowned and anointed, but I thought it would be less painful to stay apart. I was wrong, but there wasn’t a thing I could do about it then other than live with crippling regret as my punishment.”
His punishment. Bitterness filled my mouth. I refused to let him play the victim. Not with this. “You think you were punished? I died, and let’s not forget that, in this life, I grew up in the foster care system, so forgive me if I don’t feel much empathy for you!”
“Foster care system?” Kieran tilted his head. “What’s that?”
I wanted to smack myself. I didn’t know why I’d added that last part—voluntary death seemed awful enough, but I didn’t remember that part well. My childhood in this life was crystal clear, and I didn’t want to explain it to anyone … especially him. Yet … “It’s where kids who have lost both parents and have no one to take them in or are abandoned by their parents go. I lived in a group home where kids like me lived with caregivers.” I didn’t want to go into specifics. There were just as many workers who’d cared about us as there were who hadn’t. “They tried to place us with foster parents, who they paid to let us live with them, and let’s just say that doesn’t always go well for us kids.” That was it. That was all I had to say on the matter. “It wasn’t the easiest upbringing, so don’t act like you were the only person who suffered.”
“What do you mean by ‘it wasn’t the easiest upbringing’?” His hands clenched at his sides, icy blue mixing with the gray as if he were brewing a storm of shadows and frost.
“A few homes I was placed in were with foster parents who did it for the money and not out of the kindness of their hearts.” I hated that he wouldn’t drop it, but in fairness, if he’d ever revealed something like this to me, I’d want to know more. I didn’t understand the relationship we once had, but it sounded very toxic. All we’d done was hurt one another, and in this tournament, that was the last thing I needed.
“Give me a list of names, and at the next Havestia, they will be hunted and gutted for treating you maliciously. If I can’t be the one who guts them, I’ll make sure Nolan finishes my last request.” His irises turned navy, and the stone floor underneath his feet glistened with ice.
He was about to lose it and damn if that didn’t thrill me. He wanted to seek justice for any wrongs done to me and my foster siblings. “They’ll be dead by then, so it would be in vain.”
His hands shook, and his chest heaved. He didn’t bother to hide his rage. “This is what I mean. If I hadn’t rejected you?—”
“Then nothing would’ve changed.” Though I didn’t appreciate him playing the victim, I didn’t want him to live with regret. I suspected he would win the tournament, and on the canopy, I’d seen what that regret had done to him. I didn’t want him to backtrack. “If I had to be sacrificed to save the realm, I doubt our being together would have changed the outcome. I get that you’re a king and everything, but if it was my destiny to die, it would’ve happened, regardless.”
“What if it did change, Alina?” My name rolled off his tongue in ways that should’ve been outlawed. He growled, the sound coming from deep within his chest. “I’ll never know, and I always swore if I had a chance to do things differently, I would. I’d make this right between us come warm winter or frozen summer. I’d make sure the two of us would be together.”
