Page 41 of The Shattered King

“Please,” I whispered. “Don’t.” I couldn’t bear another compliment from him. I did not want to hear that he thought me beautiful.

Never again.

The warmth faded, but he nodded. Ard and Sten came behind him, and together we walked to the throne-room-turned-ballroom, already bustling with people.

I slipped into the shadows near Sten, both of us trained like marksmen on Renn, ignoring the calculating look Prince Adrinn passed me.

I didn’t know why he took an interest, but he kept his word and left me alone.

Early in the event the queen brought over two young women, near Lissel’s age, and introduced them to Renn.

He was cordial, kind. I was too far off to overhear the conversation, but I could imagine what he said to them.

Imagine the discomfort in his eyes when the quartet in the corner started a new song and his mother pressed a hand into his back, urging him onto the dance floor with one of the women.

He took up the correct posture, one hand on her hip, one in her hand, and he danced well enough; he didn’t stand out from the crowd, and his partner seemed overenthusiastic at his ability.

He didn’t hunch, didn’t cough, the picture of health.

I had done that, and I took so much pride in it, it hurt.

It hurt to watch them. And I hated that it hurt, but it hurt so much less than it could have.

That, I understood perfectly. The sooner I completed his lumis, the sooner I convinced it to stay complete, the sooner I could go home to my family and the bees, and gradually, as the seasons passed, it would hurt less.

Brien would come home, and it would hurt less.

An hour passed, then another. I stifled a yawn with the back of my hand; how Sten and Ard just stood there, day in and day out, was beyond me.

Renn started coughing between sets, as gentlemanly as one could, a handkerchief pressed to his mouth. He quickly weaved to the wall where I stood. My pulse quickened, ready to help him, but when he stepped beneath the overhang masking me, he pulled the handkerchief away. It was entirely clean.

“I’m terribly ill,” he insisted. “I should retire for the evening.”

I lifted my hands. “It will only be a moment.”

Grasping my wrist, he lowered my right hand. “No, I am certainly ill.” He winked and then started for the stairs, Sten and Ard falling in line immediately.

I frowned at his back and followed him up.

Ard swept the suite when we arrived, then, after a subtle gesture from Renn, took his post outside the door with Sten.

A servant had rekindled the fire in the hearth, warming and lighting the room.

Renn pulled off his necktie and threw it on the couch, loosening the first few buttons of his shirt.

“You do realize I’m the one who will get blamed for this, if you’re too ill to finish the event?” I folded my arms and gave him a glare that made my younger siblings freeze in shame every time, but it had no effect on the prince. “What is the point of all the dance lessons?”

“I danced,” he insisted, pulling one boot, then the other, free and tossing them to the corner. “You saw me dance. And I’m terrible at it besides. I’m sparing the company.”

“You’re not terrible.”

“Oh, but I am.”

“I literally had to watch every one of them.”

He grinned and crossed to me, reaching his hands to me. “If you insist I dance, then I will dance.”

I didn’t budge.

“Come, Nym. I need a partner.”

“You had plenty in the Great Hall. I am not dancing with you.”

“Why not? You’ve attended every lesson. You’ll catch on.”

“I’m not dancing with you.”

“If you hold your breath”—he demonstrated for a beat—“you can just hear the quartet downstairs.”

I folded my arms tighter.

He dropped one hand but kept the other extended to me. “Grant me this, Nym. I’ve not truly danced for twenty-one years.”

I remained as stone, and so, after a few beats, he lowered his hand, acquiescing. And yet as he did so, I found myself oddly disappointed. I had little time to sit with it, to decipher it, as he started to turn toward his room, forcing me to make the decision quickly.

I stood. “Very well.”

He did not mask the surprise on his face.

His countenance shimmered as though he hid a distant star behind it, and when he lifted his hand, I gave him mine, letting him draw me into the firelight.

Turning our grip, he threaded his fingers through mine as he had in the woods all those weeks ago, resting his other on the dip of my waist, sending sparks through my skin and into the muscle.

He pulled me close, holding me there for two counts before stepping forward, guiding me back.

I knew how to dance. Country dances, at least, though I had not for many years.

Still, I had attended his lessons, and he chose the simplest box step, so I followed easily enough, though the furniture had not been moved, so we only had the space before the hearth.

It drew us closer, my forehead near his neck, his warmth enveloping me.

He smelled like honeysuckle and pinewood, and I wondered how with all our time together in such close proximity, I never noticed how he smelled, and how intoxicating that scent was.

I worried I’d chosen wrong. It felt sinful, dancing with him. Like a crime committed behind closed doors. Tension built in my core, but with it came a rush of energy that drove away the day’s weariness. That made me feel alive.

Somehow, through the barely there music, we pulled a little closer, his hand moving to my back instead of my side, his cheek to my temple, and I allowed myself this moment to imagine him as a farm boy or some such visiting from Grot, myself an adolescent, unscarred by the cruelty of men, dancing in the summer near a bonfire to the music of a mandolin, forgetting the world was anything but ours.

And then he whispered, “I love you, Nym,” into my hair, and the dream shattered into a million pieces, scattering at my feet just like his lumis.

I pulled away from him. He hesitated to let me go, but he did, always respectful, always kind.

Tears threatened my eyes, and I hated every one of them.

Hated how my heart twisted and writhed as though thrown into the pains of labor.

I mourned the death of pretense and pretending, and even as I did, they formed a dagger and drove straight into my heart, wedging between its thick, still-aching scars. “No, Renn.”

“Why?” He didn’t ask, he begged.

I would not cry, not here. “No.”

“Surely it’s no surprise to you. I would do anything for you, Nym. I’m nearly there ... I can walk, I can dance. The relapses are fewer and fewer. I’m understanding their pattern a little more. I might even start managing them on my own—”

“Renn, please .” It was my turn to beg. I pressed my hands to my heart, over the agate pendant, trying to keep myself together. “You don’t love me, you love the magic.”

A dry chuckle died on his lips. “What? No.”

“It’s just as you said. I’ve given you life again. Legs to walk, to dance. Energy to explore, to be present,” I pressed, throat constricting. “ That is what you love. Any woman who did it in my stead would evoke those emotions from you.”

He shook his head, incredulous. “You don’t have the right to dictate how or why I feel, Nym.

That isn’t part of this. Do you think I hadn’t considered that?

That I might be confusing gratitude with adoration?

I’ve scrutinized it all, over and over again.

And I adore you, Nym. Even if I lost my legs and my lungs, I would adore you. ”

I shook my head, a hateful tear spilling over my cheek. “No, Renn. We can’t. If you’ve truly considered it as you say, you know we can’t. There’s a reason you’re on the dance floor and I’m not.”

He wiped a hand down his face. “I’m not the heir. It’s not ... so set in stone ...”

I felt like I was suffocating. He might as well have had his hands around my neck. “It doesn’t matter. I ... I never will. Never again.”

His expression fell. “Tell me, Nym. Talk to me.”

But I was so choked with emotion I could barely speak. “No man can love his own shadow, Renn.”

He went very still. The firelight glinted off his hair. Turned his eyes green.

“I will see you tomorrow,” I croaked, and fled to my room, careful not to meet Ard’s or Sten’s eye in the hall. Renn wisely did not chase after me.

He knew I wouldn’t want him to.