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She sat on the edge of one of the chairs, body held tense. It took her a moment to realize she was poised to run.
Bastian stared into the desiccated remains of a bouquet in one of the vases. She could almost see the resolve travel through him, just like Spiritum or Mortem might. All the secrecy he’d held, the distance, channeled out of him as he decided to finally tell her. “At night, I’m free. Mostly.” He spoke quickly, the words jumbling over themselves in his haste, like he only had so much time. “He’s quiet, then. But He’s still there, waiting in the back of my damn brain. He can’t… can’t hear me, not if I try to keep Him out, but when the sun rises, I feel Him looking, getting an idea of what happened the night before.”
Nyxara’s caution wasn’t completely unfounded, then. Lore waited to feel some kind of satisfaction from the goddess in her head, but She didn’t seem vindicated. Just worried.
“That’s why I haven’t wanted to speak to you about it.” Bastian ran his hand over his face. “I don’t know what He’ll do, when He knows you know.”
Cold slithered from the top of Lore’s head all the way down her spine. “Don’t worry about me. You can tell me anything.”
Even if she couldn’t return the favor.
“I can’t, but I’m going to.” He made a broken sound, hanging his head low. “Because I can’t be alone with it anymore. Lore, I feel like I’m going to explode.”
She wanted to go to him. But if she did, she would tell him about Nyxara. So she knotted her fingers tightly in her lap and stayed still.
“I don’t know how much I can do,” Bastian continued, still staring at the dried-out stems of what used to be foxglove, gathered in the dusty vase. “How much I can say. Because during the day, He takes over. Not always, but more and more. He…” Bastian trailed off. His head turned to the side, hiding his face from her, so all she could see was the night-spill of his overlong hair. “I shouldn’t have done this,” he said, so quietly Lore wasn’t sure if she was meant to hear. “I thought I was helping. I thought I would be better than him.”
No capitalization there, just vehement hate. Lore swallowed. “You mean… do you think your father heard Apollius, too?”
Another burst of that awful not-laugh sound. “It’d be easier if he had, don’t you think? Something outside of him to blame. I wonder if he’d have been in the same hurry to kill us and gain our power if he knew it came with a god holding your reins.”
Lore didn’t think that would’ve deterred August much.
Bastian paused a moment, still facing away from her. “It’s getting worse,” he murmured, as if he could be quiet enough to keep Apollius from overhearing. “Every day, when the sun comes up, it feels like I have to fight a little harder to have any sort of control. Like He’s getting stronger while I get weaker.” A pause. “And the worst part is, I don’t really know why I’m trying to hold on. Surely, Apollius would be a better Sainted King than I am.”
“Don’t say that.” It came from Lore’s mouth, but it was echoed by the voice of Nyxara in her mind, the two of them spitting the words at the same time. “You’re a good King, Bastian.”
“I’ve never been good.” Dry, like it was a joke. Bastian finally let go of the table, his hands leaving prints in the dust, and came into the room proper. No sconces had been lit, but the window by the bed was open, and the full moon shone more than enough silvery light to see by, even if it kept everything shadowed.
“Then that makes two of us.” Lore reached out and caught his hand, the scarred one. She fit her palm to his, laced their fingers. “Be morally ambivalent with me, then. Stay. Don’t…”
Don’t give up. Don’t fade away. Don’t let the god of everything have you, too.
The shadows hid his eyes, but his head arced toward their clasped hands. “I’ll do my best,” he said finally.
The door opened. One of the footmen slipped in two trunks, one for each of them, then bowed and left as quickly as he’d come. They probably made a very dramatic picture, the King and his betrothed, clearly in the throes of some important discussion.
When the goddess’s voice feathered through Lore’s head, it was subdued. She’d been listening, too. He is working harder to keep Him at bay than I anticipated.
I told you he would. Lore shot it at the back of her mind like an arrow.
It is no small feat, Nyxara murmured. It is not a battle he can fight forever.
There had to be an end to it. An answer in the books; maybe an answer from Anton, if she could go interrogate the mad old priest again when they returned to the Citadel. There had to be something.
Bastian still stood in front of her, his head hung low, the dark waves of his hair obscuring his face. He didn’t move, but his hand in hers was heavy, weighed down.
“Hold on,” Lore murmured, clasping his hand tighter, their scars marrying into the image of a melded sun and moon. “Bastian, just hold on for me, and we will figure something out.”
His other hand came to rub at his eyes, a weary sigh lowering his shoulders. “For you,” he said finally. Then, “Come to bed, Lore.”
She rose, went to open her trunk. Pulled out a chemise, shucked out of her gown with no thought for modesty, left it in a heap on the floor. By the time she turned around, Bastian was already in the wide bed, his shirt gone, the moon tracing pale lines across his bare skin. Faint scars there, sleek muscle. He’d always looked rougher than a prince was supposed to.
Lore wasn’t sure what to expect. Wasn’t sure what she wanted. She slipped quietly into bed, into his arms.
Their faces were close, his breath humid against her cheek, feather-light.
Lore melted against his hardness, scarred muscle and angular bone. He stirred against her thigh, but his hands didn’t roam anywhere that the heat in her wanted them to, one cupped at the nape of her neck, the other on the dip of her waist, the softness of her stomach.
