Page 41 of The Crimson Princess (The Ravengale Chronicles #1)

Chapter twenty-eight

T oren seems to read where my mind has traveled and he covers my hand with his where it rests on the table. “Your father didn’t kill my father.”

I breathe out in utter relief. “Oh, thank you to the stars above in all their glory. I don’t know how we would have overcome that.”

“We are not them, Satima.”

“We might not be them, but we live within relations created by them.”

“I’m brutally aware, which is why I want you to know who I am, not who your father told you I am.

My father died before the war. Ruhn killed him.

He claimed it was a training accident, and my mother was there to back him up, but I never believed it.

My mother’s greatest fear was our hatred of each other. ”

“Why did she give up the crown?”

“She was never someone who wanted to rule. She just didn’t like the pressure it represents. During the war, she took Ruhn with her to another world, which I believe was her fear we’d turned against each other. And of course, she ended up dead.”

I can barely breathe with this information. “You think he killed her?”

“She was one spot closer to the crown, the one person who could reclaim the throne if I was gone.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It was a long time ago now. I’ve made my peace with her death as best as any of us make peace with such things, but I will never make peace with Ruhn. Ever. ”

“I’m shocked Ruhn followed you as long as he did.”

“I’ve wanted to exile him for centuries, but I decided keeping an eye on him was better than keeping him at a distance though as he floats between realms, he hasn’t been quiet about his desire to overthrow me.”

“And he thinks he found it with the sorceress?”

“I think he found it in the druids and then convinced them to help him summon the sorceress.”

“You think or you know?”

“I know that’s the intent. The rumor is that Crya hides out in Third World, and tortures those locked in exile. For all we know she controls the portal, not Osiris. Maybe she is him.”

“That means she chooses who comes down for the Challenge.”

“The Challenge is the book’s creation which means her, so it’s like her game she torments the gales with every ten years.

I think they tried to get to her before the Challenge and failed.

Why else do you have werewolves in your forest with a sealed portal?

Macklemore summoned the sorceress when he was mortally wounded to beg for salvation.

That’s what caused the cracks in the portal. ”

“The portal in Ravengale is not cracked, but when I was in the human realm, there were disruptions, especially the night my mother died. As if someone has been trying to open it and succeeded for moments in time.”

“In the Codex it says, when hell is one with all the worlds, there will be a new king. It’s written at least three times. I’d previously believed that referenced the war, and the fall of Lares. Now I’m not sure anymore, especially since my intel says my brother intends to rule Third World.”

“Then he has to believe he can control her.” I hold my hand out in question. “How?”

“Macklemore believes he could do it with the book. That has to be it. They want the book.”

I shake my head. “No. It doesn’t make sense. Then why not just come at my father? ”

“Something has happened that we don’t know for him to offer his daughter as a sacrifice.”

I hesitate, aware that trusting in Toren is perhaps betraying my father. “Toren, if you betray me—”

His hands slide to my face and he leans in, his mouth closing over mine in a kiss that is as passionate as it is hard and fast. “I will never betray you, Satima. Never .”

My heart is racing and as I press my hand to his chest, I feel his echoing my own. I ease back from him, and flatten my hands on the table, telling myself I can feel Toren’s character. I can feel his intent. He will not burn me.

“Princess? What do you want to say to me?”

“It’s not anything you don’t know, not really.

” I twist around to face him. “I can feel what others feel at times. It’s a new magic, I don’t fully understand at this point, but I know what I read in my father before my attack.

The book told him a king will overthrow him. It really is a creator of chaos.”

“And of course, he believes that king is me.”

“Yes,” I confirm. “Everything he is doing is about stopping that from happening. If he joins the druids, the druids stand with him to end any and all vampire rule.”

“I don’t know why it stressed you out so badly to tell me that. He tried to kill me. Of course, he believes it’s me.”

“It just feels like a betrayal to tell you what he has not actually told me. I just ripped it from his mind.”

“You didn’t betray him by telling me the obvious.”

“My point is that when I tell you he really believes that if we join the druids, we will stand together against you, your brother, and the sorceress will become a non-issue.”

“Your father is no fool and your magic may not be developed enough for you to understand what you read from him. He’s a strategic player.

Maybe he knows my brother is involved with the druids, and he offered you to them to shut Ruhn out.

Or maybe he simply wanted to buy time, to figure a way out of this, so he offered them you. He didn’t press a marriage agreement. ”

“No. No, that’s true. What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know his plan, but his actions are rather telling.

He let me stay for the Challenge. To me that says, he suspects something will happen that day.

And he knows I will stand with him before I allow the druids or my brother to gain more power, even if I have to fight him afterward.

And if he believes something is happening on Challenge Day, it has something to do with that portal. ”

“He still has the book.”

“For now. If every gale in that arena is in danger, would he hand it over?”

“He’d call off the Challenge before he’d allow that to happen.”

“Would he?”

“Yes,” I insist.

“If he thinks the druids are standing with him, you might be right. But they aren’t, Satima. They are not.”

“What if they are? What if he negotiated with them and that’s why I’m promised to Bellar? You have to concede that came out of nowhere. It’s possible. And maybe your brother is pissed. He plans to call forward Third World on his own, and my father knows.”

“Why not just tell me? He knows I’ll handle my brother.”

“Maybe it feels like he’s asking for help and he fears you would decline. He did try to kill you.”

“Maybe. Or maybe they’ve all joined together to kill me.”

“Do you really think my father, your brother, and the druid king will share power?”

“Do you really think your father and the druid king will share power? We don’t know what is going to happen on Challenge Day, but something big is coming, and the only thing I know for certain is that I will be ready. Your father better be, too.”

In that moment, I am more certain than ever that I will be caught in the middle, and there may well be a moment where I have a choice to make. Toren or my father.

And my father represents Ravengale.

Toren’s hands settle on my shoulder. “I have intel arriving tonight. I feel pretty solid about having answers. All this guessing will mean nothing when it gets here. Let’s take a few hours away from all of this. I want to show you Bloodstone.”

“Remind me again how long I have before I have to return home?”

“Today and tomorrow are full days. We’ll head back early on day three to ensure we don’t run into delays.”

“I need some time to read.”

“You have all day tomorrow.”

He helps me to my feet and we begin our adventure.

For the rest of the day, Toren is my tour guide.

We visit several of his favorite ocean spots before lunch and eat in a cozy ancient village that reminds me much more of Ravengale.

Unlike my father, who keeps his distance from the gales, Toren has no barrier between him and his vampires.

They know him and treat him like welcomed family.

After an afternoon in the snowy mountains of their furthest region, we end up in a quiet corner of a pub near Toren’s apartment, with Tabby, Gideon, and Stefan.

Listening to them interact, I laugh more than I have laughed in a long time, and at one point I find Toren staring at me, his expression unreadable. I lean over and whisper, “What is it?”

He slides his hand under my hair, his palm warm against my neck, and in a very public display of affection, pulls my mouth to his and kisses me, before he says, “I like having you here.”

I can feel the eyes upon us, but I don’t care. “I like being here.”

Gideon clears his throat. “Public place and all, you two.”

Toren and I smile and share a laugh, before I settle back into my seat, and all I feel from Toren’s closest friends is acceptance and lighthearted fun.

There is no rejection in them for me, and I wonder again why he doesn’t have a queen.

I’ve never heard of him with a female by his side, but even without such a companion, he’s managed to create this amazing circle of friends, who allow him to exist outside his crown, who would die for him and him for them.

My mother was my best friend, the person who understood me in all ways and there’s a pinch of emotion in my chest that has me excusing myself to the bathroom.

I hurry away from the table and down a path framed by stone walls, and I’ve just turned a corner when Toren captures my hand and turns me to face him.

“What just happened?”

“Nothing, I—”

He cups my head and kisses me, a deep slide of his tongue, that is over too soon. “What just happened?” His voice is raspy with a gentle demand.

I lean against the wall, feeling the weight of my grief. “I’m missing my mother. She was really all I had. You have an amazing circle of friends.”

He plants his hand on the wall beside my head, the other settling warmly on my waist. “I know how much losing your mother hurts. You were close to her. I was close to both of my parents. And I can tell you from experience, the loss will hit you at random times and feel as if it comes at you from nowhere and everywhere all at once.”

“We used to go to little bars around San Francisco and just watch people. We’d try to figure out what their stories were. I’m still not sure I know yours.”

“No?”

“No.”

“What do you want to know?”

“The same thing I asked you the night at the bakery back in Ravengale. Why don’t you have a queen next to you?”

He tilts his head back, and I watch the muscles of his throat bob before he lowers his gaze to mine.

“I’ve certainly not been celibate, princess.

I wouldn’t pretend otherwise. Vampires are sexual beings.

But my answer to why I have no queen hasn’t changed.

And any female who claims the throne next to me would be a target for my brother. ”

“I get that. I do. But I didn’t accept it that night, any more than I do now. You dismissed the idea of needing an heir, but what of your legacy? What about your followers who need a future that will not be corrupted by another ruler? You need an heir. You need a wife. ”

“Are you volunteering for the job? Because if you are—”

My hand presses to his chest, the thunder of his heartbeat matching my own. “We’ve only just met and yet we both know that can’t happen.”

“Everything is possible. My mother used to say that. And while we share a bloodbond that erases the time you speak of, I am also not at all resistant to courting you.”

Courting me ? Is he serious? And why are we even talking about this? Everything is not possible. If only it were. Toren , I whisper in my mind, his name is torment radiating from somewhere deep in my soul.

“Toren.”

This time it’s not me who says his name. At the sound of Stefan’s voice, Toren grits his teeth. “We’re not done talking about this.” With that, he releases me and turns to the other vampire.

Stefan says nothing, simply offering him a folded piece of paper, secured with a red seal. Toren accepts it and murmurs something unintelligible to Stefan, before he returns to me. He holds up the paper. “Intel. It’s time to go home.”

His hand settles on my waist and he blinks us into his living room, next to the fireplace that instantly glows with warmth.

He leaves me there and walks to the window, the night upon us, the twinkling lights of Bloodstone’s city beauty beyond the glass.

I hug myself as he offers me his back, the muscles in his shoulders knotting with each passing second.

When I can take it no more, I close the space between us and step to his side. “Well?”

He turns to face me, his expression grim. “You were right. Your father and the druids did come to an agreement, with you as the currency, and Bellar assumed to be the future king by your side. The druids, in turn, shut my brother out and together they plan to submit me to their rule.”

“I’ll never marry him. You know that. And then it falls apart. The plan won’t work. ”

“Their plan isn’t what worries me. What worries me is how pissed off my brother is.

He’s vowed revenge, and he wants it now, not later.

He plans to use his rebels to attack and claim Ravengale and the Book of Life as his own.

Once he does that, he can open the portal and submit the sorceress and he’d have unlimited power.

And now you know why your father was so willing to have me at the Challenge.

Just as I suspected, they want me to end Ruhn and then they plan to end me. ”

“How do we stop it?”

“ We don’t. I do.”

I recoil inside at the division of those words. “What does that even mean?”

“I have to go out for a while.”

In other words, he needs to plan a war without the enemy present.

His hands come down on my arms and there’s a flex to his fingers, tension in the touch that I’ve never felt between us until now. “Roam freely. Explore. Read. Whatever you want. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

A huge part of me wants to remind him I’m not the enemy, to ask him to include me in his planning, to allow me to help him find a solution that brings our worlds together. But his need for space is palpable and I offer him the escape he craves. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

For a moment, he just stares at me, those blue eyes as sharp as my dagger, and then he’s gone, just gone, and I’m alone, in the vampire king’s home.

In a few minutes, I’ve gone from the future queen he hungered for, to the thorn I can only assume he doesn’t want in his kingdom, let alone his luxurious bed.