Page 71 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Shan

S han rested her forehead against the glass window, eyes closed against the endless stream of foliage as they made their way back to the capital, the hours passing away in silence as they left the countryside behind.

The roads were empty, the path clear and swift, and Shan watched the sun cross through the sky until they approached the grand city of Dameral, the smell of salt and brine on the air as they turned down the main thoroughfare.

The carriage was silent except for the soft scratch of pen against parchment, the Eternal King seated across from her, writing in the journal spread across his knees, his endlessly clever mind sketching out plan after plan, contingency after contingency.

It had been nothing but that, the two of them working with Mel to test the limits of her inhuman capabilities, the full capability of what Blood Working could do.

Mel herself was much more agreeable to work with, now that she was being given human blood to gorge herself on, chasing prisoners across the carefully warded courtyard of the Aberforth estate—her enhanced strength and agility and goddamn flight a sight to behold.

The Eternal King watched her with all the adoration of a proud parent watching his only child take their first steps.

He cooed over her viciousness, praised her ferocity, offered her tips and advice on how to hunt more effectively.

And when it had come time to head back to Dameral, Mel had submitted to the blood binding without so much as batting an eye, just because he had asked for it.

And now she sat next to Shan, dozing peacefully as the bridge buzzed between them, a low hum in the back of Shan’s mind, a precaution done just in case.

Samuel had been right to fear this. What Isaac had made of himself was incredible, but Mel was quickly surpassing him. She cast a lazy glance towards the King’s notebook, both fearing and dreading what new laws would be enacted once his secretary parsed that looping, slanted script.

The King put the pen aside, placing a ribbon in the notebook to hold his page. His gaze flicked over to Mel, noting her apparent catnap, before he spoke at last. “I noticed you are no longer wearing your ring, Shan.”

Shan was surprised that he hadn’t noticed sooner, or if he had, that he hadn’t brought it up right away.

Still, she didn’t respond, letting the magic bud in her fingers as she plucked at the bridge.

Mel’s rest was not an act, but Shan still sent her tumbling into a deeper slumber.

She wouldn’t wake until Shan allowed her to.

The King smirked, no doubt sensing the manipulation of magic in the carriage, a quick incline of his head showing that he saw and approved.

“Samuel,” Shan said, taking care to keep her voice flat, to hide the pain that hadn’t lessened in the days since Samuel had returned to Dameral, the ring that was the sign of her engagement gone with him, “has some doubts after seeing what we are planning.”

We , she said. Like she had any real choice in the matter. Like she was little more than a marionette the King controlled, plucking at her strings as she danced to his tune.

“Unfortunate,” the King said, with a sigh. “But not unexpected. How are you holding up?”

Out of all the things the King could have asked her—their engagement was the cornerstone of so many of Shan’s personal and political goals, the union of the Royal Blood Worker and the Lost Aberforth the beginning of a new age in politics—she hadn’t expected this.

This was a kindness, and Shan didn’t know what to do with it.

“As you said,” she said, reaching into her reticule for the slim, silver case she had become so attached to lately.

It didn’t take her a moment to pull a cigarette out, a lit match in her other hand as she took a long inhale, the harsh drag of chemicals in her throat tempered by the buzz that immediately hit. “It was not unexpected.”

The King held out a hand. “May I?”

Startled by the ask, by the simpleness of sharing a smoke with one so powerful, Shan just held out the case, the lid flipped open to expose cigarettes lined up in a neat row. He took one with almost exaggerated care, plucking it with his claws before he leaned forward.

Pressing the tip of his against the burning end of the cigarette hanging from her lips, he breathed deep as he lit his off hers.

The smoke billowed between them, his lips curved into a gentle smile, his eyes closed as he savored the taste.

It softened the harshness of his features, as if he had shed some of the mystery he carried—the burden of ruling, of eternity, dropped just for a moment.

This close, she could see the soft brush of hair on his jaw, as if he hadn’t bothered to shave before they had set off this morning. His lips were chapped from the cold, red and a little raw, and as he exhaled, she noticed his left eyetooth was just a hair crooked.

A series of small imperfections in an imperfect man.

And who was she, to see such vulnerabilities in her King?

What right did she have to know the man behind the crown, especially when he was her greatest enemy?

Was supposed to be her greatest enemy, at least. But that was before she had been pulled under his wing, before he had shown her into the deepest secrets that Blood Working had, had helped to cultivate her greatest talents and her cruelest instincts.

It was before Samuel had left her, before she and Isaac had ended things for a second time. Now, the Eternal King was all that she had left, in all his endless, brutal glory.

So, why shouldn’t she take what was offered?

He settled back in his seat, the cigarette hanging loose in his fingers. “Do you want him back?”

Shan’s voice came out harsh, the smallest fracture in her carefully maintained composure. “You cannot deny that the match is advantageous.”

“That’s not what I asked, Shan.” He said her name like a caress, low and rumbling in the tight space between them.

“No, it’s not,” Shan muttered, dredging up another half-lie, deflecting from the very real pain by offering a sliver of truth. “But it is what is most important, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps,” the King said, pressing his fingers to the latch holding the window fast. It opened a sliver, enough for a burst of cold to fill the carriage as he flicked the ash from his cigarette. “Yet, my darling, I asked about you .”

She didn’t understand his blasé response, the way he kept deflecting from the very real political ramifications of it.

Because he was right—if she stopped to look at it for even a moment, she would shatter into a million pieces, and she did not know if she had the strength to put herself together again. “What I want doesn’t matter.”

She had learned that awful truth years ago, the harsh realities of the world whispered into her ear by a father who never knew what love even was. She should have learned then—perhaps then she wouldn’t have gotten her heart broken thrice-over.

No, she had to focus on the things she could control, on the power that felt like it was about to slip through her fingers.

Despite the title the King had given her and the leverage she had earned on her own, being tossed over by the Lost Aberforth would be a blow to her already fragile reputation.

One that she might not be able to recover from.

“That, Shan,” the King said, not with judgement but with a barely restrained fury that reminded her achingly of Samuel, “is where you are wrong.

Samuel might be my heir, but I have known for a long time that he would never be more than a puppet.

But you, my dear, clever girl, have the potential to be so much more.

“If only you would let yourself rise.”

“And how,” Shan asked, as tears bloomed, falling as soft as the snow in the winter’s dying light, “would I do that?”

“Forget Samuel,” the King said. “Let him wallow in his own self-inflicted misery. You do not need him. We do not need him.”

“I don’t—” she started again, but the King silenced her with a touch of his hand on hers, fingers tangling together. Not letting go.

“Give me time to handle things,” the King said, and it felt as solemn as a promise. “Samuel will not get away unscathed for his treatment of you, for the way he continues to fail me, over and over again. The Lost Aberforth will seem like a paltry prize next to what I can give you.”

The shape of what he was offering, the future he had hinted at, was starting to take shape. And it was grander and even more terrifying than anything she had ever dared dream of. “You cannot mean—”

“Do not,” he interrupted, stern and grim, “presume to tell me what I can and cannot do.” He pulled her closer, pressing his lips against the soft, delicate skin at the inside of her wrist. The touch was as fleeting as it was intimate, but it left her trembling at all the unspoken potential between them now that Samuel and Isaac had cut her loose.

“I know what I want, and it would behoove you to consider my offer. There is no need to be a pawn when you could be a queen.”

Shan only nodded, her heart pounding in her chest as the carriage came to a stop and the King let her go.

They must have reached the palace at last.

The footman came around, the door opening to a shock of cold. The King stepped out without another word on the matter, dropping the remains of his cigarette in the snow as he pulled his cloak even tighter around himself.

Shan snapped the bridge between her and Mel, the girl awakening with a start. “Blood and steel, how long was I asleep?”

“For a bit,” the King replied, helping her out of the carriage. “Let’s get you settled back in, and—”

He turned away to speak to the carriage man, the fading light catching his profile in a soft glow. “Please escort Lady LeClaire home.”