Page 70 of A Queen’s Betrayal (Legends of Worldbinders #1)

Kayson braced his hands on the counter, leaning down until his eyes met Arenna’s. “Do not withhold anything from me, Arenna. Did something happen?”

“No, absolutely not.” She knew her persistent questions might make him doubt her, but there was something about Rodsan she couldn’t quite pinpoint.

Kayson studied her intently for what felt like minutes before speaking again. “No, I can’t just remove him. It’s a long process.” He leaned closer again. “But if I needed to, I would, and I would find a way to make it quick.”

“No need.” Arenna looked into his golden eyes, her stomach tightening.

For her, she truly believed he would do that, and she didn’t welcome the flutters it brought on.

“You heard Naxei; stir this,” she instructed, setting the spoon in his hand.

She grabbed his glass of water, needing the distraction and change in conversation, but when she turned back, the king was still staring at the spoon. “First time in a kitchen?” she teased.

He gave her a tight smile. “I don’t want to mess it up,” Kayson admitted.

Something in his hesitation made her feel like he wasn’t speaking about the stew. “You can’t mess up stirring,” she said, kinder this time. “Just stick the spoon in and move your hand in a circle.”

His jaw tightened. “Truthfully, I wish you didn’t see this.”

“What? See you be anything but a cold, hard bastard?”

Kayson’s eyes flicked to hers. “That mouth only grows more wicked, doesn’t it?” His gaze slipped to her lips.

Arenna cleared her throat. She noted a pile of already chopped potatoes on a small board, along with a heap of dried herbs. “Here, put these in there.” She handed him the board.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “I will definitely mess it up.”

“You will not. Just do it. Naxei asked us to.” She brought a hand to his elbow, guiding it toward the brim of the pot. “Have you never cooked anything before?”

“Not unless it was an animal over a fire. This,” he nodded toward the pot, “is a bit fancy for me.”

She tilted her head back to see him better. “You’re doing fine. Just keep stirring.” Arenna held the small pile of herbs—thyme and rosemary, she guessed—in her hand.

A heavy silence fell over the room. They took turns stirring, adding ingredients, and smelling the broth.

Every now and then, she felt his eyes on her, the intensity of his stare lingering even when she didn’t return it.

There was something humbling and comforting about cooking with the king, their official responsibilities non-existent as they stood over the roaring pot of stew.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Kayson said, giving her a half-smile. She would be lying if she said her heart didn’t trip over itself at his boyish grin.

“I’m actually trying not to,” Arenna admitted. “That was a lot.”

He hummed in agreement, still stirring the stew.

“The First King of Worden severed the continents to protect his kind from the humans, right? Not so he could reign over one half and humans the other. He did it to liberate the enslaved.”

Kayson was quiet but nodded.

“All this time, I was told humans were enslaved by the Fae because we were powerless. It made so much sense that I never asked questions.” She looked up at the king, not at all surprised to find his eyes already on her.

“But it was us who killed, enslaved, and tortured anyone with magical abilities.”

“Yes,” he whispered. “The why and the how is part of what was lost in the Severance. We do not know what Ruven was capable of or how he accomplished a conquest of nearly an entire continent.”

Arenna ran a hand through her hair, idly playing with the ends.

“I don’t understand what Jaksen is doing then.

Creating blood magic, creatures—for what?

” She sank back against a small stool in the corner.

“It made sense then. Fae oppressed humans for generations, and if we do not stop them, it will happen again. That was the message, the slogan for this drawn-out war. But if none of that was true, then what is he fighting for?”

Kayson shrugged. “We can only speculate. Maybe he longs for the power his ancestors had. Maybe he too wants to reign over Pheanixios as the sole king, and he must create a magical army in order to do so.” He carefully set down the spoon and walked toward Arenna.

“I have fought and dealt with many Brookworth kings in my lifetime, and I’ve seen it through my fathers. But he is different.”

“Different how?”

“We have never witnessed blood magic—or his creatures—until now. We have never seen a more hungry, more deadly, or more cruel Brookworth king. He, above all the rest, has been called Ruven reborn.”

Arenna’s head snapped upward. “The book never said they were related.”

“And they aren’t,” he corrected. “It is simply said that the mannerisms, the cruelty, the hunger for blood and power are all too similar to the man who started it all. I do not know his intentions for this war or this world, but I do know it is not harmony. Or peace.”

Darkness threatened to filter back in. Pain associated with Jaksen and their marriage raked talons down her mind, clawing and prodding to get inside, to re-infect her with their lethal poison. “He must be stopped,” she whispered.

“Then we must fulfill the prophecy.”

She nodded as the dread in her chest expanded.

Kayson seemed to sense it, saying, “We should try it.” He motioned toward the stew. “See if I ruined it after all.”

“Only if you go first. I’d rather not taste it if you did make it nasty.” She smiled up at him, thankful for his sudden change in conversation. There would be a time for the bad; maybe now they could focus on the good.

Kayson shook his head, chuckling as he shifted and grabbed the wooden spoon from the table.

He dipped it in and brought it to his mouth.

A soft moan escaped his throat—causing her toes to curl in her boots.

She needed to get that sound out of her head quickly .

“It’s delicious,” he said, offering her a bite.

Arenna nearly moaned herself at the flavor on her tongue. “That is not half bad. See?” She nudged him in the ribs. “You’re decent at stirring after all.”

He choked on his second spoonful of broth, coughing, spluttering, and laughing as he hunched over. At the sound of his hearty, warm laugh, Arenna couldn’t help but join him.

Each and every worry she had ever felt seemed to ease from her chest as they clutched their bellies and laughed harder, until the king said, “My greatest accomplishment yet.” He took a breath. “Bloody stirring.”

Arenna felt the heat of Kayson’s stare on her skin, his eyes traveling over her face, lingering on her scar.

His smile fell the longer he stared.

She squeezed the herbs so tightly that they left tiny green stains on her skin. There was a tension settling between them that Arenna was not ready for, that her heart was not yet strong enough to handle.

And as Kayson’s eyes fell to her lips, she turned away, red burning her cheeks.

Silent filled moments passed before he stepped closer, bringing his hand to the scar on her face. “I hate that he did this to you,” Kayson whispered. “I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure no one ever touches you like that again.”

Arenna tried and failed to respond, the weight of emotion too heavy in her throat. Her lips parted, but no words came—only a shallow, trembling breath. She wanted to say thank you. She wanted to say it wasn’t his fault. But nothing felt big enough to express what she felt.

So Arenna just stood there, eyes burning, heart pounding, and let the silence speak for her.

Pulling up his sleeves, the Fae King revealed intricate white scars so precise they resembled tattoos. “I was only one hundred when I got these,” he said.

Breathless, Arenna said nothing as she dumped the herbs into the pot, watching the brown broth swallow them up. She could still feel his touch on her face, the heat lingering along her scar.

“My father had just been killed in battle only a few days prior when Brookworth raided our camp.” Kayson stared into the stew, as if the swirling colors were hypnotizing him with each movement of the spoon.

“My mother refused to stay at home with my siblings during the war, insisting she fight alongside him. And I was the heir. I had no place but there.”

She remained still, hardly breathing as Kayson unleashed a beast from his past.

“My mother and I were taken captive by men from across the oceans, men who swore allegiance to Brookworth. Iron was placed on our wrists, snuffing out our magic like it had never existed in the first place. They brought us back to their kingdom, to a dining room so dark I swore sunlight never touched those shores.”

His eyes were hauntingly hollow.

“Where-where were you taken?”

“Qasand.”

She pondered for a moment. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“It no longer stands.” The cold, dead gleam in his eyes suggested he had watched that kingdom fall and had been the one to reduce it to ash.

“I was chained in that dining room like a prize, my arms and hands bound in rope anchored to the wall.” He looked at the reminders on his forearm.

“Rope burn gone wrong, I suppose. They pulled so tight the imprints never left.”

Arenna reached out, tracing her finger down the swirling white.

Kayson did not stop her. “When my mother wasn’t being tortured, she was left in a cage across the room.

She was so close, and yet, I . . . I could not get to her.

” He swallowed. “I could not save her in the end, either. All the while, I selfishly could not stop thinking about how my father would feel and how disappointed he would be that I let them . . .”

He rolled his shoulders back, swallowing hard again. She didn’t know what to do, what to say, or how to comfort him.

“We were forced to stay there without food and water or sleep while they ate and drank and pissed their nights away. I was forced to listen to them . . .” He swallowed again, unable to get the words out.

She wrapped his free hand in her own. “You don’t have to say it.” She knew well enough what his mother had endured, what those monsters had done to her in that room.

“They made me listen. Made me watch .” Kayson gripped the spoon so hard it snapped in two.

“It took them days to finally bore of her, of the fight she did not give them. They slit her throat in that dining room, then nailed her to the wall beside other bodies—bodies that no longer had faces, features. Nothing but rotted, lingering corpses of males and females, men and women from all over their world.”

Disgust rolled through her, souring her stomach. She realized then how evil this world was, how people like the ones in Qasand made Jaksen feel kind. “How did you escape?” Arenna whispered.

“Marea, Bramnen, and Wylder found me. Nothing more than my friends, working and living in Emerlon, fighting in my father’s army.

Once my magic was freed, there was no hope for that kingdom.

” His eyes grew distant, as if he was remembering the destruction, the battle.

And even though it was necessary, it still seemed to haunt him.

“I came home the next night as King of Worden and named the three of them as members of my council.”

Arenna did not think as she lifted onto her toes to wrap her arms around his neck.

A minute passed for the initial shock to wear off, but once it had, his heavy arms threaded around her waist and held her.

It had been so long since she embraced another purely for comfort that she had almost forgotten what it felt like.

The king himself seemed to not realize how badly he needed it too as his head buried into the space between her neck and shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “For what happened to your mother. And to you.”

Kayson pulled away, but his hands lingered on her arms, falling to her hands. “It was a long time ago.” Over a hundred years ago, and yet that pain still seemed so raw.

“Doesn’t make me any less sorry,” Arenna insisted, and she meant it. She rubbed the scar across her skin. “It does make my story seem pitiful.”

Kayson tightened his grip on her hands. “Scars are reminders of what we endured.” His voice was stern, hard. “Do not belittle them, nor what you went through—and survived.”

“It was a long time ago,” she whispered. She smiled tightly, turning back to the barely simmering pot.

His eyes once again drifted to the scar on her face, then to the twin bands on her wrists. “You have to keep moving forward, Arenna,” Kayson whispered. “Otherwise you will not grow in your power. Do not let him take this from you too.”

She swallowed, her mouth painfully dry. “We better not let this get cold.” Arenna placed her hands near the copper pot, closing her eyes and willing fire to her fingers in seconds. Golden flames eased from her fingers, wrapping around the pot until the liquid inside bubbled and popped.

“Thank you,” Kayson said. “For listening.”

She wondered if people did not do that enough for him.