Page 24 of The Nightmare Bride

He paused. “To answer that, I’d have to tell you my whole life story.”

“Okay. Go ahead. It’s not like I have anywhere to be, apparently.”

Heat crept into his eyes. “Oh, but I can think of better ways to spend our time alone. Much better ways.”

I moved to swat his shoulder, but he caught my wrist and held it fast.

A zing eddied into me from the place where his fingers circled my forearm, prompting the very potent realization that I was practically lying on top of him. Which was...probably sending the wrong message.

I tugged my hand away. I might have decided he wasn’t a criminal, but really, what did that matter? This man was destined to marry Amryssa. All that had actually changed was that pesky little detail about me killing him in cold blood.

Which was...fine, really. It would’ve been a shame to let a face like that go to waste, anyway.

“I’d much rather continue last night’s conversation than tell you my deepest, darkest secrets.” His voice took on the consistency of hot, wet silk. “Because I believe we were at the part where you were about to fall hopelessly in love with me.”

“No, we were at the part where I was about to slap you.” I eased off him, though it cost me every ounce of energy and a not-insignificant amount of throbbing pain.

Goddess, why did everything hurt? So much more than usual?

Then I remembered. I’d launched myself from that horse last night. And hit the ground hard .

I looked down. Crusted scrapes littered my arms. Everything ached, though not so much as to suggest I’d broken any bones.

Kyven’s gaze followed mine. “I suppose I could share, if you’d care to join me in the shower. I always do my best confessing while naked. I do most things better while naked, actually. I’d be happy to demonstrate.”

I rolled my eyes, ignoring the mysterious response that prompted at the juncture of my thighs. “I already told you my story. For free. No joint showering required.”

He heaved a theatrical sigh. “That’s true.”

“The least you can do is return the favor.”

“Well. My life isn’t actually all that interesting.”

“Somehow, I doubt that.” I held his eyes for a beat, and wow, did he make dishevelment look good. Dried sweat stuck his copper-dark hair to his forehead. Two-day stubble dusted his jaw, just begging to be touched, while scarlet smears adorned his chest.

My blood, not his. Evidence of how close he’d held me last night.

Seeing my own marks on him did something strange to me, so I kicked my legs over the bedside and went in search of my dagger. Best give him space, like he’d done for me over ale last night.

Best give us both space. Much-needed, much-desired, absolutely critical space .

Once I had my dagger in hand, I claimed a seat at my vanity. Kyven scooted to the mattress’s edge, his eyes meeting mine in the mirror.

“Would you like to see?” I said. “What it can do?”

He nodded and made to stand, but I waved him back. I’d never shown this to anyone before. Then again, no one had ever saved me from a nightmare, either. Now this would have to serve as my tit for tat, since Kyven wasn’t getting his hands on any other kind.

I went to work, smoothing away a cut.

He sucked in a soft gasp. “That’s...astonishing.”

“Just tell me your story. While I work.”

Eventually, he must’ve come to grips with seeing my wounds knit into fresh, unblemished skin, because he said, “Last night, do you remember me saying I wanted to go everywhere? Do everything? Be everything?”

I quelled a shiver. Given the circumstances in which he’d delivered those words, I couldn’t have forgotten if I’d tried. “Yep.” I concentrated on a particularly nasty scrape, one that required me to pick out a chunk of gravel, first.

“Well, that wasn’t always true. At its root, my story isn’t all that different from yours.”

I frowned. Whatever growing up as royalty involved, I doubted being dumped in a swamp ranked among the perks.

But I’d listen. I owed him that much.

“I wasn’t...wanted, you see,” he said.

I paused. I didn’t detect any hint of resentment, just a bare laying of facts.

His gaze turned distant in the mirror. “My parents...well, they had me by accident, and they never missed an opportunity to let me know. I was the last of my siblings, and my mother and father were tired by then. Enough to consider me a burden. The lesser of all my brothers and sisters. And you’d hardly know it now, but I felt that judgment so keenly.

I was a quiet child. Sullen. After all, my parents thought of me as a mistake, so why shouldn’t that be true? ”

A lump formed in my throat. “That’s hard for me to imagine. You being...” Unwanted , I almost said, then veered. “Sullen.”

He laughed. “Oh, but I was. Enough that I resolved to leave home as soon as I could. Which I did, when I was still young. Probably too young to be finding my way in the world, but I can’t say I have any regrets about it now.”

I made a sound even I didn’t know the meaning of.

I had difficulty imagining a prince being permitted to just..

.go forth, but he was the youngest. So far down the line of succession as to be practically ineligible for the throne.

And an early launch would explain some of his more surprising tendencies—chiefly, his willingness to spend his days lathered in a dirt-soaked sweat.

I guessed he hadn’t grown up in opulence, after all.

“Anyhow,” he said, “after I left, I traveled all over. I think I was trying to find a better family than the one that hadn’t wanted me. But it turns out no matter where you go, people are much the same. Mainly interested in themselves. Loyal only to themselves. In short, not like you.”

My shoulders curved as if to deflect his words. I wasn’t special. I didn’t know why he insisted on seeing me as such.

“But one night, I made peace with all that, in a dingy little theatre in Gray’s Reach.”

My hand slipped from the cut I was mending.

Gray’s Reach? That was as far north as one could go in Elara—the frosty terrain of the patron goddess Gelidra, a territory renowned for its icy mountains and cruel winters.

I could barely conceive of traveling that far.

The journey would take weeks. Months. “You’ve been to Gray’s Reach? ”

“I’ve been to ninety-eight territories, if you can believe it. Only one remains. But Gray’s Reach was ten years ago, now. At the time, I was nineteen, and had never seen a play before. I’d also never drunk that much ale, but the show grabbed hold of me, anyway.”

“And that...changed your life? A play ?”

He fought a smile. “Mmm-hmm. It was like a whole new world opened up, one I’d never known existed.

Those people on stage, they were whatever they wanted to be.

Whatever they said they were. And I thought.

..why shouldn’t the same be true for me?

Maybe my parents hadn’t wanted me, but so what?

What prevented me from wanting myself? What if the only person who could define me was.

..me? And in doing so, I could become whatever I wished? ”

My breathing did something funny. It couldn’t be that easy, could it?

“When I sobered up, the first thing I did was join that theatre troupe. Which turned out to be everything I’d hoped for.

We traveled all over Elara together, and each night, I tried on a new face.

Figured out which ones felt like mine, be they the hero’s or the villain’s.

I’ve been a pirate in my time, and a horseman.

A warrior and a poet. I’ve even been a woman.

I’ve also died a shocking number of times. ”

Something tickled at the back of my mind. “And...you often fell in love in the evening, and out of it again by sunrise?”

He laughed. “You clever thing.”

Color stung my cheeks. Goddess, I’d thought he’d meant something very different by that.

“Anyhow, that was my life,” he said, “for a very long time. I tried on every identity I could. Kept the pieces I liked best, let go of the others. And along the way, I sampled every food. Soaked up every vista. Learned every accent I could wrap my tongue around. Which happens to be all of them.”

“ All of them?”

“Well, all but one. I can do Oceansgate, if you like,” he said, his inflection so identical to mine that I forgot what I was doing.

He caught my shock in the mirror and grinned. “Or would you prefer Stormbow?” His voice had changed again, filling with stilted consonants. “Though I have to say Crystal Hollow is my favorite, without a doubt.”

My jaw slackened. I’d never even heard that last one. Ever. But I could see why he liked it. It was melodic. Like a song compressed into words.

When I managed to sift through my surprise, I said, “That’s incredible. You’re incredible.”

“Ah. You’ve finally noticed.”

I flushed. “But...after all that traveling, you ended up in Oceansgate?”

“I did.”

“Where you stayed a while?”

“Mmm-hmm,” he said.

“This was recent?”

A pause. “Yes.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Ten months.”

I chewed on that. Nearly a year. “But if you’ve been to ninety-eight territories, you can’t have stayed anywhere else for that long.”

“No. By the time my wanderings brought me here, I’d made myself into this and I liked it. It felt natural. Right. And, if I’m honest, I was curious about the nightmares. I’d heard the stories and...” He shrugged. “What can I say? I wanted every experience. Not just the pleasant ones.”

I refrained from gaping, but only just. “You came because you wanted to live through a nightmare?”