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CHAPTER 57 Kai

Shadows skitter over my skin, as if summoned by the darkness brewing within me.

Rough bark digs into my spine, kneading my back with gnarled fingers. I lean my head against the willow’s sturdy trunk, watching warmth filter through the veil of branches. The long, drooping leaves cast shifting shadows across my skin as they sway in the breeze, dappling me in both light and dark.

I haven’t left the willow’s comforting embrace since Paedyn left mine. My gaze lifts to the sun above, winking at me through the shifting umbrella of leaves. The wedding has likely started already, but I’m rooted to the spot like this tree beside me.

Tears sting my tired eyes. I can’t remember the last time I truly cried.

Aside from my reunion with Paedyn after her third Trial, there was the day Ava died.

I look down at the patch of soft grass beside me.

Father carried out our training as if nothing had happened, continuing to carve open my skin and push perfected power from my body. I could do nothing but numb every inch of myself, force a mask atop my grief. Every tear was hidden until I returned to my room, bloody and shaking.

Then there was the night I took my first life.

At the time, I hadn’t even known the extent of what the king made me do. But I wept for Paedyn’s father all the same. I wept for the piece of me that died alongside him.

That was the first night I drove a sword into the posts of my bed. Over and over again.

Wood splintered beneath my blade, chunks of it flying in every direction. Grief drove me to find something more potent within myself, something to smother the hurt—fear. I would become a monster, a puppet of death, if it meant I felt nothing else.

Then I met her.

Paedyn rivaled me, the stars, the very sea with her gaze. She had me in the palm of her hand the moment she grabbed mine in that alley. And for the first time since I was a boy, fear gripped my heart. Right then and there, I knew she would be my undoing.

We are inevitable, the Silver Savior and me. Our pasts are as irrevocably intertwined as our futures now will be. But it is not love that has tied our souls together. It is duty.

My vision grows blurry behind the foreign feel of tears. I lay a hand on that soft grass, shutting my eyes against this wave of emotion. “I don’t know what to do, A,” I whisper.

She says nothing. She never does.

A tear rolls down my cheek. “I’m tired.”

Tired of the loyalty that has taken everything I care about. Tired of standing by while happiness finds its home elsewhere. But most of all, I am tired of losing her.

Then there is now—when I cry for the future I so badly wish to live with her. It’s a silent stream of tears that I try my best not to acknowledge. I take a shuddering breath before swiping at them roughly.

“Don’t let her be your weakness.”

Mother’s warning came far too late. She is not only my weakness—she is my everything.

My voice is weak. “I can’t lose her too, A.”

I comb a hand through my unruly hair, raking fallen leaves from the strands. The shadows wave their goodbye as I stand to my feet and stretch stiff limbs. “I have to do something.”

My gaze falls to the rumpled blanket beneath me, a mere remnant of last night. The cool breeze in her hair, gasp in her throat, warmth in her touch. Now it is a memory that will haunt me.

I stride from beneath the drooping branches, evading the willow’s reaching fingers.

My skin smells of her. My heart aches for her. The Enforcer bows to her.

I’m off to find my queen.