Page 31

Everly

B y the time we reached our room, the silence between us had settled into something heavy. I didn’t have it in me to break it, and he didn’t seem inclined to try.

Lumen waited outside the doors along with Draven’s wolves, guarding against the threat he scarcely acknowledged.

The king’s chambers were anything but humble. Carved from glacial stone veined with silver runes, the walls shimmered with restrained power, every line pulsing faintly beneath the surface like the mountain itself was alive.

Tall windows let in the afternoon light, casting long shadows across a bed draped in dark furs and heavy velvet. A claw-footed bathtub sat in one corner.

It was elegant, beautiful in a way that made my skin crawl, like the room itself had been carved to impress, not to comfort. Then again, maybe that was just my general distaste for this place and everything in it.

I shivered, sucking in a breath through my teeth.

Draven crossed the floor to the tub, wordlessly calling water with a twitch of his fingers. Steam curled through the air, carrying the scent of something herbal and faintly sweet, and I used it to ground myself.

Before I could wonder who the bath was for, Draven stepped past me and gestured to the tub.

“You should bathe,” he said flatly. “I have things to attend to.”

It was as much an order—and potentially an insult—as a kindness, but I didn’t argue. Whatever it was, whatever reason he had for offering, it was a small scrap of mercy. And I didn’t have the strength to waste it.

I nodded mutely, and his mana pulsed with something I was too distracted to name.

I didn’t look at him as he left the room, busying myself with letting Batty out for a fly.

I waited until the door closed behind him before pulling off my boots and then the rest of my clothes with trembling fingers. I was numb all the way down to my bones, like the cold from the Arcane Chamber had followed me upstairs and taken root beneath my skin.

The tub glowed faintly, like the waters at the palace. It shouldn’t have been surprising. This place was steeped in mana as well, connected to the ley lines of the realm.

Just another reason I was out of place. You couldn’t get less connected to the Shard Mother than being restricted from her flow of mana.

I shoved down the thought, slipping into the water and trying not to drown in a younger version of myself that had wondered endlessly why I wasn’t good enough to be blessed by her. Why I had been singled out for torture and abuse while others tapped freely into the power of the land.

The heat eased the aches in my muscles, the tight skin around the mottled scars on my back, even though it burned the open cuts on my palms. But I didn’t care.

I welcomed it. Let it crawl over my body and work its way into the cracks left behind by the Arcane Chamber.

The ache. The fear. The sharp edge of memory that kept cutting, deeper and deeper.

I sank lower, until only my face broke the surface. The rest of me disappeared into the heat and silence.

I didn’t scrub. Didn’t move. I just soaked, letting the water weigh me down until my body felt distant, like it belonged to someone else.

Eventually, the water cooled, and my skin started to prickle with the chill.

I dragged myself out of the tub and dried off slowly, limbs weighed down with exhaustion.

I padded across the stone to my bags, grabbing Wynnie’s salve to soothe my hands before blindly pulling out a clean set of clothes.

The underwear was spun from frostwyrm silk, unnaturally soft and lacking any unnecessary lace frills.

A kindness from Mirelda?

It was a small, unexpected comfort as I pulled them on, fingers still shaking slightly.

And that’s when the door opened.

My stomach lurched as Draven stepped into the room, already closing the door behind him. There was no knock, no announcement.

Of course not. He was the king, and these were his rooms, and courtesy was not a skill he had ever been given cause to acquire.

He froze in his tracks when he caught sight of me. I might have taken a moment to relish in the rare display of shock on his features if this had been any other day, somewhere far away from a temple inhabited by the cruelest fae I knew.

I spun to reach for the robe draped over the chair to cover myself just as he cleared his throat to speak.

“I assumed you would be—” his voice cut off abruptly, right in the middle of what had almost sounded close to an apology, coming from him.

For a blissful fraction of a second, I thought that was why he had stopped himself, that his pride had taken over. Then I remembered.

In my haste to conceal my very naked breasts, I had put my back on display instead.

Shards . Hadn’t I been laid bare enough today, in every imaginable way?

He was across the room before I could move.

I stayed frozen, feeling a lot like my skathryn the first day she had flown into my rooms. Like if I didn’t face him, he wasn’t really here. He couldn’t see me and the map of vulnerability I had unwittingly revealed.

He was close enough to feel his unfathomable warmth searing against my skin, but he didn’t speak, didn’t move. Even his mana was eerily still, like it, too, was frozen in shock.

The air shifted, and I felt his hands draw closer to my back. They hovered just above the skin, as if even he wasn’t sure he had the right to close the distance.

I wasn’t sure either, but neither could I force myself to move.

Slowly, one calloused palm settled on my shoulder, his thumb resting on a lash mark.

Heat seeped through the old wound, more soothing than it had any right to be.

The other hand followed the line of one of the deeper scars, tracing its curve with movements that were gentle, but nowhere close to soft.

Restrained, like the charge in the air just before lightning strikes.

I reminded myself that these were the same hands that had taken more lives than I could count, but I stayed rooted to the spot, drinking in his unexpected touch like it was the only air in the room.

He drew a ragged breath, his exhale ghosting along my damp skin.

The scars were old, but not faint. Some were thin and surgical, etched by steady hands. Others were messier, rushed cuts that hadn't been meant to heal cleanly or puckered burn marks.

One long mark curved down the right side of my spine, disappearing just beneath the waistband of my underwear. Most of them, I couldn’t place anymore. They all blurred together in my memory like brushstrokes in the same bloody painting.

“Who did this to you?” he asked, voice low and hoarse.

I didn’t answer, not right away.

Because part of me still didn’t know what the hells I was feeling. Not all of the heat coiled in my stomach was shame. His mana pressed in around me, fierce and protective and disorientingly gentle.

But he was also a liar in his own right. He had to know what the mages were doing.

I scoffed, the sound bitter and sad all at once. “You accuse me of being a liar and then pretend not to know where these scars might have come from?”

I stepped away from him before he could respond, shoving my arms into the robe. Even after I wrapped the fabric around myself like armor, I still couldn’t turn to face him.

His gaze was heavier than the charge in the air, his footsteps unnaturally loud as he moved to stand in front of me. I stared at the floor like I could avoid him, the burning in my cheeks an indiscernible concoction of shame and fury and something else I couldn’t— didn’t want to —identify.

With sure, steady fingers, he lifted my chin.

“I am many things, Morta Mea. ” Each word fell like the first flakes of snow in an avalanche. “But I have never lied to you. Now, tell me who. Put those marks. On your back.”

My mind stretched across every interaction with him, searching for falsehood and finding none. He was abrasive—and an ass of epic proportions…but he had never felt the need to lie.

I let out a brittle breath.

“What does it matter to you?” My voice cracked despite myself. “You heard the Elder. I’m a Hollow, just like I told you. I’m useless to you. I am nothing to you.”

It shouldn’t have hurt. It shouldn’t have mattered.

He tightened his grip on my chin, his aurora gaze boring into mine. “You are my wife , whatever else you are, and I do not allow anyone to harm what belongs to me. So I’ll ask you one final time. Who did this to you?”

Each word was laced with authority, garnished with the unmistakable ring of truth.

I have never lied to you.

You are my wife.

I could see him placing his body between me and the Mirrorbane, mana unleashing like an unholy vengeance, then standing between me and the Elder mage, his voice cutting through the tension like ice through silk.

What belongs to me .

In spite of myself, that sent something surging in my chest. I had never belonged anywhere, hadn’t been protected by anyone but Wynnie in so long. It was unreasonably tempting to let myself fall into that lie even though his ownership had brought us both nothing but misery.

But I wasn’t a fool. He didn’t just want me to have mana so he could avoid the taboo of a Hollow wife. He needed my power for something, and I knew better than to trust anyone who wanted to use me.

I reminded myself that I wasn’t falling for this. Still, I heard myself answer.

“Mages,” I said quietly. “But they’re all dead now.”

Not for the torture. For failing to bring forth my mana. That was the sin they were punished for.

Not the knives. Not the cages. Not the screams or the burns.

Just the failure.

He scrutinized me like he could see the truth hiding in my soul. I swallowed, backing away from his grasp. He brought his hand slowly back to his side.

“Why would you expect me to know that?”

I shook my head.

“Why would I expect you to know what happens to children all over the realm, including in the kingdom you rule, when they’re born without mana? What did you think happened when they were sent to the mages?”

A muscle clenched in his jaw, but he didn’t respond. So I answered for him.

“Whether they’re trying to save their children or their pride, most parents don’t just accept that their children are defective and then smother them in their sleep.

At least, not right away,” I added bitterly.

“After all, nothing is worse than being a Hollow,” I echoed, the words still slicing deeper than they should.

His eyes flared, his lips parting, but I didn’t give him a chance to respond.

“So most of them are like you . Ready to deny their reality until it’s proven beyond all shadow of a doubt, by any means necessary.”

I gestured vaguely to my scars and then to the window, the blizzard we had trekked through still raging outside, before turning away from him once more. The reminder of who he was and why we were here had my legs trembling with exhaustion that was slowly seeping its way into the marrow of my bones.

This time, he didn’t try to respond. The silence was more oppressive than soothing.

I paused, looking over my shoulder at him.

“Would you have even cared if it weren’t for this bond? If it was just another Hollow rather than the one Fate shackled to you?”

His features darkened.

“I have never pretended to be the hero of anyone’s story.” The words were low. Honest. Disappointing all the same.

I climbed into bed without another word, pulling the covers up to my chin.

The window was cracked. Batty would come in when she was ready, and everything else here could take care of itself.

“I’ll call for dinner,” he said behind me, tone clipped and unreadable. “You need to eat.”

“No,” I bit back. “I need sleep. After all, more tests tomorrow, right?”

My voice was quiet, but it cut just the same.

Several seconds passed where I wasn’t sure if he moved or breathed. But a moment later, his voice reached me, lower now, closer, rough around the edges.

“There will never be another test like that.”

I didn’t answer, even as I heard the echo of his promise resonate in my soul.

I have never lied to you.

Maybe not yet. But no one ever lied until they had a reason.