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Chapter One: Rhea

The sun’s warmth bears down on me like fire from above though it does nothing to melt the ice that begins to settle in my veins. Like the waters of a lake touched by bitterly cold winter air, everything in me stills.

Tell me, was your mission in the Mortal Kingdom successful? The older mage’s words pelt into me one by one until I struggle to take a breath.

“Mission?” I question, peering up at Flynn.

His fingers twitch from where I’ve dropped his hand while his dark gray eyes flash with panicked surprise. When the silence stretches on between us, the older mage clears his throat and mumbles something about catching up with His Highness back at the palace.

“Highness?” I whisper, looking back out over the gathered crowd. Most have their attention on the interaction happening beyond the Spell at the edge of the beach, but a few have turned to look our way. To look at Flynn—or is it Nox? “Who are you?” I breathe, confusion gripping my throat as I turn back to look at him.

A few tendrils of his wavy black hair move in the breeze, the sunlight glinting off his sharp cheekbones. He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

“More lies?” My tongue feels like lead in my mouth, and I can’t stop tripping over each thought and emotion that is boiling up inside me until it nearly renders me mute. He had confessed all his lies at the inn. He had—

“Rhea, let me explain,” he pleads, only loud enough for me to hear.

Your mission.

Was this whole thing between us nothing more than a facade? A way to get me to his kingdom? My chest rises and falls harshly, but the air isn’t reaching my lungs. I’m back in that stone tower, the walls slowly pushing in as my reality continues to suffocate me. My own fears of him seeing me as an illusion have been thrown back in my face, the irony of it all like a sharpened dagger slowly driving in between my ribs.

“Who are you?” I ask again, feeling pressure build behind my eyes.

He quickly closes the distance between us, faster than my spiraling mind can comprehend, and though he doesn’t touch me, he leans down close enough to keep his voice barely above a whisper. “I know you’re confused and you have questions, which I promise to answer. Anything and everything you want to know, I will tell you.” He pauses, turning his head as figures approach us from the water’s edge. “I just need a few minutes here first. Please.”

Please.

The word bashes my grip on my anger and, instead, lets it slip through me, filling my body with something acidic. With his honeyed words and even sweeter lips—ones that had nearly devoured me two days prior—what parts of him are real? How many of his declarations could I comb through and find a hidden meaning for? If I looked hard enough, could I pinpoint the spaces between his words that held the truth of what he wasn’t saying?

“Sunshine, please,” he begs again, leaning in even closer to me.

My options are truly limited; I am in a foreign kingdom and outside of my tower for the first time. If I take Flynn out of the equation, I am completely and utterly alone again. My chest clenches at the memory of a white bundle of fur, of pointed ears that always twitched in warning. Those things are gone now— she is gone now. So what choice do I have but to stand by this man who clearly lied to me again , despite proclaiming he’d confessed nothing but truths? The sickening thought that I’d rather have his betrayal and still have him than have nothing but solitude bleeds into my mind. How pathetic . Still, I nod in agreement.

The figures that were on the other side of the Spell reach us, two women and one man. Up close, the women look almost identical while the man— king —looks exactly like Flynn. His black hair is longer, down to his shoulders, and his stature slightly shorter, but there is no mistaking the identities of these people—his father, mother, and sister.

Flynn hugs his father, and I turn my attention out to the ocean. Though I have never been to the beach before, I had read enough about it to be able to picture it in my mind. I could imagine how it moved, how the crystal-blue water was powerful enough to consume anything and everything in its path. There have been so many times in my life where I felt overwhelming emotions crest over me, exactly like how I pictured those waves moving. Right now, as I stand at the side of the only person my heart has ever truly spoken for, I feel like I’m being crushed by waves of shock and confusion. As if I’m standing out in the middle of the vast waters ahead of me, waiting to be swallowed whole.

Flynn and his father separate, his mother stepping up next to embrace her son while his sister eyes me curiously. She’s taller than I am, and the dress she’s wearing does not hide her strong physique. I meet her gaze, her irises the same as Flynn’s though they are missing the tiny specks of silver that reside in his. I begin to wilt under her inspection and the way she looks at me like she already knows every secret I carry. Flynn moves in front of me and says something to his sister, but I can’t hear anything above the rapid beating of my heart in my ears.

His head abruptly jerks to the side, a thump accompanying the movement, as his mother gasps and his father lifts a brow in question. His sister just hit him in the face. I take a step back, needing space, and bump into something hard. Turning my head quickly, I see Cassius—Flynn’s best friend—smiling widely, his hand gently pressing between my shoulder blades to steady me. His white-blond hair is pulled back from his face, its length falling past his shoulders. The color is stark against his rich dark skin, which is mostly hidden under the thick dark brown leathers he is wearing.

“Careful, Blondie,” he whispers, winking before removing his touch.

My heart batters my ribcage, my stomach growing more uneasy as the reality of the past few minutes catches up with me. A warm, tingling sensation starts to accumulate in my palms, drawing my gaze from Cassius and down to my hands where my magic is glowing. I quickly make fists, hoping that the brightness of the beach under the sun hides the white light from anyone who happens to be looking. Cassius shifts on his feet behind me, and when I look back over my shoulder again, his smile has lessened and a line has appeared between his brows.

What if he saw?

I don’t know what Flynn’s plans are for me anymore or if he intends to tell anyone about my magic, but my innate response is to force it back inside of me, like everything else I either don’t want or know how to deal with. I cross my arms over my chest, my fists tucking under them as I focus on trying to breathe through the swelling emotions roiling within.

A throat clears, fingers caressing my arm and causing me to flinch as I turn away from Cassius. Flynn stands in front of me, his face stern while he stares at his best friend. I look down at the way he is touching me, his large hand gently laid on my forearm, and have to swallow back tears that threaten to spill. It was only this morning that I would have let him touch me anywhere he wanted. It was mere hours ago that his presence was the only thing I had needed to feel like I was home.

“Sunshine, we can go now.” Flynn extends his hand and then drops it when he realizes I’m not giving him my own. “I know you’re angry, and you have every right to be, but I promise I can explain.” He tilts his head to the side, trying to catch my gaze, and when I finally give it to him, all the effort of holding my tears back is for nothing. His eyes gleam with an eager anxiousness, but it’s the other emotion that I see in them that has my own eyes overflowing.

Love. Pure, unfiltered love looks back at me. And it isn’t fair because I may have never been in any sort of romantic relationship before, but I know that you don’t lie to people you love. The juxtaposition of the look in his eyes and that of his secretive actions leaves me feeling completely suffocated.

I nod my head, unsure of what else to do or say, and follow Flynn as he leads us off the beach. I keep my gaze down, looking only at his steps ahead of me, while inside my mind, I’m screaming in frustration. In panic and confusion. In anger.

Once we are off the beach, walking on a path in the shade provided by the abundant trees, I blow out a breath, tugging my loosened braid over my shoulder and nervously twisting the strands. Flynn walks beside me now, so closely that our arms graze with each step, Cassius taking his place behind us. His parents’ voices sound farther back, but I focus on the light wood carriages up ahead and am reminded of the conversation we had on our way to the beach.

After we see what is going on at the beach, I will introduce you to my parents and we can talk more, Flynn had said . Did he know his supposed truths were about to be exposed for what they actually were—polished lies? Gods, I had even felt like he was on the verge of telling me something before pulling back.

Flynn opens the door of the carriage we originally arrived in, allowing me to step in first. I take a seat on the dark green velvet bench, squeezing myself as close to the glass window as possible and giving the door my back. He sits across from me, the distance feeling so much larger than what the tiny space of the carriage actually measures. I can feel his stare, but I don’t look at him as we sit in stilted silence. It’s heavy and ugly , and I wish more than anything we could go back to the night of my birthday. The night when his lips devoured mine and we were poised to do much more. I ache fiercely to go back to when he gave me that journal and a note that left me feeling like no one could possibly love another soul as much as I loved him. As I thought he loved me. It was a love worth exposing my magic for. One worth following him into an unknown kingdom for.

I now wonder if it is one worth enduring his lies for.

With my attention focused on the window, I take in the beauty of the forest as we move. This kingdom truly is a marvelous wonder; the varying shades of green and the immense amount of plant life outside is almost enough to draw some happiness out of me—though I’m unsure if that emotion will ever come easily again.

A tear drops down onto my arm, more flowing over my cheeks as I squeeze my eyes shut and burrow deeper into myself. So naive. So incredibly naive and stupid to assume that someone could actually love me as I am. The carriage jostles, and then I feel him right behind me, his warmth doing nothing against the bitter numbness hardening me from within.

“I’m so sorry.” His voice is a rasp, like it’s been scraped along jagged rock.

“Who are you?” I ask again, the words barely a harsh whisper between my lips. Those already full mental boxes—brimming with grief and hopelessness—rattle inside me, reminding me that I don’t have the capacity to hold anymore. Flynn was supposed to be a reprieve . He was supposed to be the one person that I could trust— and I did . I trusted him with everything that I was.

“I’m still me, Rhea.”

My breath feels trapped in my throat, my lungs struggling to get air in that won’t come. It’s reminiscent of how I felt the first time we reached the town of Celatum, where panic replaced my thoughts and imaginary mountains crushed my chest. I ball my hands tightly in my lap, my nails digging into my palms.

“Breathe. It’s going to be alright,” he says, though uncertainty paints his voice the same way it frays my soul.

My eyes close, and I focus on following his commands, working to steady the erratic beats of my broken heart. To pull that invisible shield inside of me up and over myself so that I don’t have to bear witness to the feeling of there being a stranger in this carriage with me.

“There you go, Sunshine. We’re almost at the palace.”

“Why are we going there?” I ask between gulps of air.

He is silent for a while, just the noise of the carriage wheels over the stone pathway and Cassius humming a tune from where he sits outside playing between us. “Because I am the crown prince of the Mage Kingdom.”

The crown prince. He is royalty, and yet he paraded around in another kingdom as one of their guards. Why?

“Please say something,” he whispers behind me.

“What would you like me to say?” I murmur back, keeping my gaze to the window as we slow and come to a stop. I hear the door open, and then Cassius’ voice trails in.

“Let’s take Blondie to the tavern and—” He cuts his question off, and I tense, feeling his stare on me.

“We’re going to need some time, Cass. I also have to say goodbye to Bahira before she leaves,” Flynn states quietly.

“Okay, then,” Cassius drawls.

“I’ll come find you when I can. Thank you, Cass.”

“Anytime. You know that.” There’s a pause, and then he adds, “Are you home for a while?”

“I’m home for good.” It’s silent again, and I don’t know why, but that causes me to grit my teeth while an ache forms in my chest. Turning around to face the door, I see that Cassius is already gone, and when my gaze then finds Flynn’s, it’s a struggle not to crash my body into his. The way his eyes plead with me to… To what, I don’t know this time. Listen to him? Believe him? Trust him?

He must see the indecision in me because his eyes close for a moment as he tilts his head down. One of his hands runs through his hair, pushing the strands back and holding them there. I study his face closely, the way his mouth is bracketed with tension and how his brows are drawn down and in. He looks tired, dark circles visible under his eyes. Even with all of those things, he is still the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. Which only unravels me further. Here, in the painful quiet, Flynn blows out a deep breath and forces his eyes to meet mine.

“I want to tell you why I was really in the Mortal Kingdom.”