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Chapter Six: Rhea

I walk over to the windows in Flynn’s sitting room and look down at the palace grounds outside. Set atop a small hill and surrounded by some of the biggest trees I have ever seen, the palace is nothing short of marvelous. Despite being three stories, it still blends into the surroundings. What I’ve seen so far of this kingdom is so vibrant, the plants and trees integrated into the structures and not merely pushed out of the way to make space for buildings. Even inside, multiple potted plants dot each corner—varieties which I’ve never seen before.

Flynn had brought me to his bedroom on the third floor before leaving to say goodbye to his sister as she embarks on a journey to the Shifter Kingdom. The sitting room is indeed very princely with its dark wood floors and rich-colored accents. A deep blue and gold oval rug lies in the middle of the space while two green couches face each other across it, a wooden table between them. To the right of where I stand, in front of a wall of windows and a sliding glass door that leads to a balcony, is a square table with four chairs. A bookcase stacked neatly with different tomes lines a wall to my left, a fireplace with a light wood mantel next to it. There’s a door on the adjacent wall, one that must lead to Flynn’s bedroom.

The whole space reminds me of him—elegant, unexpected, and confident. I’m angry that it even smells like him, and more than that, I hate that I’m comforted that it does. Stupid, naive woman.

It’s everything my tower wasn’t, and still, my body seems to feel the needles of confinement creeping in. I’m no longer locked in a prison—not even locked in this room—but it doesn’t seem to matter as my lungs struggle to inhale deeply enough. Time creeps by while I’m lost in my thoughts before Flynn returns and I feel him come up behind me, my eyes shutting as I try to focus on taking a full breath.

“Rhea, please talk to me. Let me try to explain everything. I swear to you, I—”

“Just tell me,” I insist, turning away from the window to face him.

His face falls before he drags a hand down it and gestures for me to take a seat on one of the couches. He doesn’t join me, though, opting to stand.

“Four years ago, we felt a burst of magic come from the Mortal Kingdom. We had never felt magic radiate like that before and certainly would have never expected it from a kingdom that was supposed to be magicless.” A line forms between my brows as I think his words over. I was unaware of any sort of event that might have caused such a thing, but of course, I wouldn’t know unless Alexi or King Dolian told me. “It was you,” he continues, adding to my confusion. “Four years ago, you used your magic on Bella to save her life, didn’t you?”

I start to shake my head but stop short when I realize that he’s right. It had been four years since that fateful night when Alexi had brought Bella to me and it was revealed to both of us that I had magic.

“I don’t understand how you could have felt my magic from all the way in a different kingdom,” I protest, digging my nails into my thighs. “Can you sense other mages’ magic?”

“Yes. I can feel their magical signature. It’s like a slight vibration in the air when they are near.”

“But I wasn’t near ,” I emphasize.

“No, you weren’t, but it was you, Rhea. Your magic—it’s strong .”

Something about those words makes my panic flare higher, coursing through my veins with icy trepidation. The dark, ancient otherness inside of me swirls as if at attention.

“You’re wrong. I may somehow be a mage and have magic, but I’m not strong with it. I’m not strong at anything.” The idea that I had yet another thing that made me stand out amongst everyone else, another flaw , is a burden I don’t want to bear. There is already so much stacked upon me, waiting to crush me with one false move, how can I possibly add anything else? How can I survive anything more?

Flynn’s eyes soften when he recognizes the fear roiling in my own. He takes a step towards me and then kneels on one leg, both of his hands resting tentatively on my knees. “Rhea, it is you. I can sense you. My parents can sense you. And your strength”—he drops his voice low, tilting his chin down slightly —“is something I admire about you. It’s one of the reasons I love you. That you haven’t allowed the things that would normally cripple anyone else to do the same to you. Your strength has very little to do with your magic and everything to do with what is in here.” One of his hands lifts and comes to rest above my heart.

My breath catches, the trickle of air I’m able to get in barely reaching the depths of my burning lungs. My heart pumps wildly under his palm, but he keeps his hand there as if he can will me to believe him. “Then what happened?” I ask, looking away from him.

Flynn removes his touch before standing and taking a seat next to me on the couch.

“Then, I volunteered to go to the Mortal Kingdom to search for that magical pulse. To see if it was something we needed to prepare for.”

“Your parents didn’t object to you going?” I ask, knowing how it feels to watch someone I love leave. I wonder if leaving me would be as easy for him to do. If perhaps that is something he is planning.

“Oh, they did,” he answers, a small amount of amusement in his voice. “But they didn’t have a choice. I was going to go whether they liked it or not. My kingdom was the most important thing to me at the time.”

“Was? What is the most important thing to you now?”

“You are, Sunshine. Only you. I would—” He pauses, swallowing as he turns to face me fully. “I would do anything for you.”

I close my eyes, forcing warm tears to escape from their corners. “Except tell me the whole truth.” When my eyes open again, they meet his, and it’s like two shooting stars colliding in the night sky—the explosion is both brilliant and devastating. “Why didn’t you tell me everything ?”

“I wanted to wait to tell you until we arrived here. I was hoping that if you saw what I was protecting—where I had come from— you would understand my need to hold on to more secrets.” The words come out rushed, a sharp inhale following them.

Swallowing is difficult as my gaze searches his, looking for the lies between his words—for a false truth. But all that is there is that unrelenting devotion.

“I didn’t tell you I was the crown prince or that I was pretending to be mortal because I didn’t want to scare you. I hated the idea that you would think that all this is, all we are, is a mission. That you are some thing to be captured or taken back to a different prison. I swear to you, Rhea, the moment I realized you were the magic we felt, my plans changed. I was going to leave you alone and come back home.”

Gods, I do believe him. My foolish shattered heart beats harshly to each word he says like he’s the lifeline to my soul.

“So you knew the whole time that I had magic?” I ask.

He nods slowly, his shoulders rounding as the tension in the room thickens. I think about how, when I used my magic for the first time, he hadn’t looked surprised or shocked. How he had coaxed me to call it back in with language that—looking back now—clearly spoke to his familiarity with how magic is wielded. He never got angry with me for hiding it from him because he knew it was there all along. And because he was hiding secrets of his own.

Like arrows firing off in my mind, each thought stabs into me with ferocity. I’m so shocked and angry by what he hid from me, but I’m also deeply and overwhelmingly in love with him. How is it possible to be entirely encompassed by that love and still hurt like I do? How can I look at Flynn and know that he’s lied about so much and still feel like there is no one else that my heart is ever supposed to belong to?

Flynn shifts on the couch, closer than before but still not touching me. Just like how he used to visit me in the beginning, always so conscious of my wariness around touch. “You have every right to be angry with me,” he says softly, halting my scattered thoughts. “I will spend every godsdamn second on my knees for you, begging for your forgiveness, if that’s what it takes.”

For some inexplicable reason, my heart beats faster at the imagined scenario. As if sensing it, Flynn’s pupils widen, heat and desire fusing within them as we look at each other. Focus, Rhea.

“What is your real name?” I ask with a breathy whisper, trying to calm the baffling flutters in my chest. “I don’t know what to call you.” The cold reality of that truth douses the flames that had begun to spark. The past months I’ve gotten to know Flynn . There is no other name that I could possibly think of to call him by.

“The only thing I want you to call me is yours , Sunshine,” he says, his voice low. That tension between us begins to shift, but doubt still lingers like a chill in the air. “But my full name is Nox Flynn Daxel.”

So Flynn is his middle name, then. I do find relief in that revelation. Maybe we could try to start over. We could try to rebuild our foundation from a place of total honesty instead of a mashup of broken truths. Perhaps here in a new kingdom, where freedom is something we both now have, we can truly discover what it is to be with each other. In all aspects.

“I do have something else I need to tell you.” The heat previously in his eyes dwindles until it’s replaced with an emotion I never thought I would see from him. One that makes the apprehension building a ravine between us wider.

Fear.