Of Darkness and Crowns (29 page)

“That’s not how it works,” Lilly says, placing her hand on her lover’s thigh. “Rulers don’t request, and they certainly don’t
beg
—they take. And besides, Kal
was
their weapon. She’s not now.”

“That’s right,” Kal says. “I was only designed to be Bale’s vessel. To reunite the lost part of herself and make her whole again. I’m not much of a threat to her otherwise.”

Something distant…a thought or memory…pulls at the corners of my mind. “Wait,” I say. As I try to uncover it, the headache I’d just rid myself of comes back full force. I pinch my eyes closed and mutter a curse under my breath.

Kal’s warm palm touches my chest. “You don’t have to—”

“I do,” I say forcibly. Because this is my penance. For all the horror I helped Bale unleash, I must suffer some. I have to offer something, anything that will help us. Just maybe. “She didn’t just fear Kal while she was incorporeal. She wanted Kal destroyed permanently, after the fact.” I look up at them. “She believed Kal would continue to threaten her…somehow. It’s the last thing I can recall.”

I hadn’t noticed during the throbbing pain splintering my head, but Kal removed her hand from me. There’s now a space between us on the couch. I realize how my words have hurt her. It wasn’t only Bale who desired Kal’s death—it was
me
. Though Bale twisted my feelings for the woman I love into an obsessive need to be eliminated, I’m the one who delivered those threats to Kal. I’m the one who wounded her. Over and over…

My mouth parts to say something, but Kal turns her full attention on Bax, not me, when she says, “She only loathes the reminder of her humanity, despises it. She doesn’t fear me now. She admitted as much.”

A lump lodges in my throat. I wish it would choke me.

I’m not sure if Kal truly believes her words, or if she’s simply afraid to go up against Bale again—something no one would fault her for—but she’s lost her fire. That once clear belief in herself that made her burn brighter than any star or moon has dimmed.

“Kal…” Lilly begins.

“I should check on Aurelia,” Kal says, pretending not to hear her friend’s afflicted tone. “Fill me in on whatever plan we decide on.” Then she bounds from her seat and leaves.

The den becomes so quiet, I can hear the crash of the waves against the shore far below.

I’m torn. One side of me demanding I man up and go after her, the other deciding she needs space. I know her volatile nature, and how she gathers strength from solitude—what true comfort would I be? Then I berate my damn, dumb self and I’m rising from the couch when Lena’s voice stops me cold.

“Choice words, Prince,” she says, shooting me a glare that could flay me.

“Lena, it’s not his fault,” Lilly says. I appreciate her offering to stand in my defense, but she’s wrong.

It is my fault. It’s
me
. I’m still wrong.

♦
33
♦

Kaliope

R
UNNING A BRUSH THROUGH
Aurelia’s silver hair, I hum the song my mother used to sing to me when I was sick. She’d sing so low I’d have to scoot close to hear her, because like I revealed to Caben long ago, my father got angry when she disturbed him.

But I hum it audibly now, though I’m a poor substitute for my mother, before her lung disease took her singing voice. Caben’s mother seems to relax when I do.

“She seems calmer now.”

I turn to see Lilly lingering near the open door. Pressing my lips into a tight smile, I nod. “She knows her son’s well. I’m sure most of her anxiety before was fear for him.”

Lilly enters the room, walking slowly toward me. “I’m sure that’s it.” She pauses near my side. Tilts her head. “And how is your anxiety fairing over it all?”

I shrug. I can’t really lie to Lilly. She sees right through me. “Now that the dust has literally settled? I’m not sure. Relieved, most days. On edge others, anticipating some residual side effect to surface.” I sigh. “And then there’s everything else. Which makes me feel selfish for even taking the time to consider my and Caben’s…whatever. The impending doom that Bale is going to bring on everyone when she feels so inclined to resurface.”

Lilly takes my hand, removing the brush so she can link her fingers with mine. “You truly don’t feel you hurt her at all?”

I shrug. “Some. Probably not enough. The closest I can figure…I think I made her
feel
.” I look into Lilly’s amber eyes, watch as comprehension brightens them. “The part of her I carry, when I destroyed the clamp? I had so much…” I shake my head. “It’s hard to explain. Like every emotion ever imparted to humanity struck me all at once. It was overwhelming. I’m sure I transferred at least some of that to Bale when I bled on her.”

Lilly releases my hand to wrap her arms around me, and I hug her tightly in response. Needing and for once, accepting, offered security. “You think that’s why she stripped herself of it? I mean, that part of herself. Maybe it was too much. Even for a goddess.”

Disentangling myself from her, I say, “It’s sometimes unnerving how closely our thoughts coincide.” Her lips twitch into a soft smile. And I’m glad we’ve been able to move past our argument about her relationship with Lena—though I’m still watching that closely.

“I have considered that,” I say. “But she’s a
goddess
. She’s all-powerful and above comprehension. How can she be limited in any fashion? Incapable of anything?”

Her brows pull together. “I don’t know. For all our knowledge on the goddesses we worship, there’s still so little known about them.”

I agree. “Something’s missing. And it’s a big something. I feel it’s the part that will unveil Bale’s possible weakness, maybe.” And what I can’t tell her further? That I empathize with a goddess bent on mayhem and obliteration—that if I had to carry the full dose of those overpowering emotions all the time…I’d have torn it from my bleeding soul also?

I’m relieved I only felt it for a moment. Though, I’ll never be the same for it.

“You’ll pull through this,” she says. “And we will figure it out. You just need some time to acclimate.”

“Yes, as I’ve never been one to handle the feeling part well. Makes sense I’d blow up into a giant ball of fury and attack a mad goddess.”

“Absolutely.” Her smile takes over her face. She nods her head toward the door. “I believe Caben’s guilt is what’s preventing his full return, if you will, into his old self.”

Smiling, I give my friend a quick nod. Unable to agree vocally, I understand what she’s trying to tell me. “I trust time to mend that, too.”

Then, before I lose my nerve, I blurt, “Is your goddess bond with the empress still strong?”

Her forehead creases. “As ever,” she says. “Why?”

Crossing my arms over my chest, I glance at Aurelia as she moves to lie down on her bed. “Mine’s been severed,” I say, and look back at her. “I thought maybe it was because of my rebellion. The empress’s punishment. But if you and the other Nactue are still linked to her, then it has to be her own personal banishment for me.”

Lilly rubs the newly formed chill bumps over her arm. “It could be because you
chose
to leave her. You could have cut the link somehow. We don’t fully understand just how strong you are…how powerful—”

“I thought of that,” I say, stopping her. I know she’s attempting to make me all right with what’s been done. What I’ve done. I don’t need her to commiserate; I’d rather have her true thoughts on this. “But something within me feels that’s false. The bond was connected between me and the empress through a power bestowed to her by the goddesses. So I doubt just the sample of Bale’s power inside me could break that.” I study her pinched face. “Doesn’t that make sense?”

She nods, her gaze on me but unfocused. “It does. And you’re right, of course. But have you considered the possibility she never wanted to force you to be the vessel? That maybe she was relieved you escaped, and releasing you from her service was her way of letting you pursue helping Caben?”

I had thought nearly the same thing, just not voiced so well. Lilly has that ability. Yet, she’s still connected to Empress Iana, and will feel the need to protect her, defend her, as she should.

The sure and unsympathetic look in Empress Iana’s gaze during our last meeting steals over me, and I’m filled with doubt at her words even more. But I say, “Maybe that’s what happened.”

She nods, and I tuck this bit of revelation away. Soon, I may have another hard decision to make. My Nactue are not truly
mine
. They first, and will always remain, Empress Iana’s elite guard.

But until that moment comes, I’ll accept the help they choose to offer willingly.

One thing’s for sure: their bond isn’t nearly as strong as mine was before my deviation. I’d have never been able to simply walk away from my duty to protect the empress. I’m assured of that.

Nights are the hardest. When everything is silent and dark, and my never-ending thoughts are loud, grabbing and clawing at my mind.

Tossing the covers aside, I groan and turn on my side, aggravated with the utter stillness. I haven’t been able to sleep a full night in ages. There was always a battle. A meeting. A Court matter needing to be addressed. The many struggles that have surrounded me for so long…and staggeringly, I feel completely at a loss without.

Though we have plenty of problems to keep my mind churning, there is no one sure solution to place into effect. I could usually rely on that at least. Bax’s final suggestion today was to wait. Wait for Bale’s move. Wait for the leaders’ moves. Wait for someone to do something so that we can answer that action with one of our own.

I’ve never been one to wait for anything before jumping in headfirst, sword raised. And I don’t know how to be a person who sits still. Bax says it’s a new lesson for me. Always the mentor, me the ever-impatient pupil. I huff and turn flat on my back. Stare at the veins in the wood ceiling and hope for a new calamity to spur us all into motion.

How awful. To want for a mishap just to chase away the boredom.

But I’ve been at unrest too long. I doubt I could ever live a normal life now.

A quiet rap sounds on the door, and my breath halts.

The door cracks open. “I know you’re anything but asleep,” Caben says.

With a surge of adrenaline, my heart bangs against my chest. I swear I can hear it in the too quiet room. “It’s useless. I haven’t been able to sleep through the night since before the Cage.”

In the dim light provided by the fire pit embers, I make out his nod of understanding. Then my gaze travels lower, to his wardrobe. The gray pants and white shirt loosely tucked into them. He hasn’t changed yet, and he reaches up and starts to unbutton his shirt.

Now my heart is careening against my rib cage. Beating so fiercely my breastbone aches, but the pressure is good. Exhilarating. Not silent, stagnant, motionless. It’s the absolute opposite.

He yanks his shirt open and pulls his arms free from the sleeves, then tosses it to the floor. My gaze hungrily traces every inch of bare skin. His beautiful, tanned flesh. The tight, leanly defined muscles of his chest and stomach. It’s not even sexual, or lustful, what courses through me—it’s demanding, but in the way a wilted flower demands water. I need him for so many reasons all at once.

Dragging back the covers, he slips into bed beside me, his warm skin sliding against my night shirt and pushing it up as he brings me flush against his body. “I’m sorry I waited until now to do this,” he whispers. “I should have been in your bed that first damn night—”

“Shh,” I hush his admission. “You don’t have to explain. I’ve been battling some
acclimating
myself.” I use Lilly’s word for lack of my own. Then I lift my hand hesitantly…and rest my palm against the side of his face when he moves closer and into position for me to do so. My breath finally releases in a rush.

Running the pads of my fingers along his temple, his hair feathering around them, I revel in the closeness he’s allowing me. Feeling my emotions heighten almost painfully, I try to tamp them down. Get them under control. Damn this unbridled mercury and its cruel aftereffect. It’s almost laughable; that I’ve become this jumble of feelings.