Page 32

CHAPTER 32

V unmore was a city of balconies and bridges, of stone carved like lacework. Positioned at the base of a dormant volcano and the meeting point of two rivers—or their fork, depending on which direction you chose to face—it almost felt as if the city had to be this beautiful to compete with its natural surroundings.

It had been the city of the mages long ago, their headquarters. Callum forgot that, sometimes.

Laena walked beside him in silence, her thoughts clearly elsewhere, and annoyance rippled through him. Hawk might have given her another day or two before summoning her like this. She’d nearly died. Even now, Callum could not stop darting glances at her, to make sure she was well.

“I’m fine, Captain,” Laena said, offering him the hint of a smile, though she did it without looking his way. She was entirely focused on the corridor ahead of them, and the grotesquely large double doors that awaited them at the end. Hawk might have met them in the library or the study, but he’d insisted on the formality of the throne room.

Laena might be walking and breathing and smiling—sort of— but she still didn’t seem fine. He couldn’t quite put a finger on the reason for his unease. She seemed almost careful, as if she wasn’t sure whether her legs would support her next step. And no wonder; she must still be feeling weak, after all she had endured.

Their conversation had started out as normal, teasing. Even affectionate. Enough to make him hope for a renewal of what had started between them at the camp.

He was a fool. It had started the moment he laid eyes on her in Riles.

But since leaving the room, she’d been acting as if she knew something he didn’t. She was concerned about the state of her magic, whether it had burned out. But he feared there was something more, something she wasn’t telling him. Was Thaddeus’s cure working? Or was she still in pain?

As they reached the doors, he could take it no longer. He stepped in front of her, taking her hands and drawing her toward a nearby window alcove. Stained glass painted the stone with abstract ripples of red and blue light. The shape of the window appeared elongated as the late afternoon sun passed.

Laena was looking at him with a question in her green eyes, her brow furrowed ever so slightly. Her curls were bound in a plait, though more than a few tendrils refused to be restrained. They floated around her face, brushing at the bandage on her cheek as if to assure themselves that she was safe.

“I must know if you are well,” he said.

Laena met his gaze steadily, raising a hand to his cheek. “I’m well.” She gave him a pat, gentle. And sad , he thought. “Or I will be, if you’ll agree to stop fussing.”

He bent over her, pressing his lips to hers. “I will not.” He dragged his lips along her jaw. She tipped her head back, gasping as he nipped at her ear. He wanted nothing more than to take her back to her room, to delay this meeting another night .

Demons. He’d need more than a night. He needed all of them.

But the king was waiting. And Laena knew it, too. As he stepped back, she made a noble attempt to return his smile.

She drew in a breath, lifted a shaking hand to pat her hair. He wanted to free it from that restrictive plait, feel those silky curly against his hands, his chest.

“Callum,” she said. “I think?—”

The enormous doors opened, and a pair of guards stepped out of the throne room. “His Majesty is ready for you,” the first one said.

If the man noticed Laena’s flushed cheeks, or Callum’s glare, he didn’t let on. These were Hawk’s personal guards; they knew how to be discreet.

Though they would very likely report whatever they’d seen to Hawk. It was likely nothing he didn’t already know, after their activities at the camp—tent walls were hardly known to be soundproof—though the attack might have pushed the information out of his informants’ minds. At least briefly.

What did it matter, if the king knew? If he could, if Laena would allow it, Callum would tell the world.

Callum gestured for her to enter ahead of him. She patted her hair one more time, then tipped her chin in the air and strode into the throne room. He could have cheered at those purposeful strides, the power in every step as she made her way toward the front of the room. Her skirts swished around her ankles, her footsteps sure and strong.

It was a ridiculously long walk. And she didn’t look down once.

Hawk wasn’t seated on the throne. As was often his custom when he met Callum and Thaddeus here—when he had done, during his father’s reign—he’d seated himself on the bottom step of the dais, his hands propped behind him, his legs stretched out. Slanted stripes of sunlight fell across him, illuminating his hair with patches of molten gold.

And Callum suddenly understood his reason for meeting them here in the throne room rather than his library or a parlor or any of the other hundreds of appropriate rooms in this palace. He was making a point of meeting Callum as he once had, ushering his once-disgraced captain back into his trust. He was meeting Laena as an equal.

The thought should have been relieving. Instead, it only added to his sense of unease.

When Laena reached the front of the room, she did not curtsy. She merely faced Hawk, her hands relaxed at her sides, and met his gaze head on.

“I apologize for my sister’s actions,” she said. “I was unaware of her… loyalties.”

Loyalties to the mages . Making deals with them, feeding their hunger to return. Answering it with a wretched hunger of her own. Callum wanted to curse their names, but it suddenly felt like he’d only be calling them. Taunting them.

He was going to need to find some new expletives.

Hawk actually laughed. “There is no need to apologize, Princess Laena. I certainly hope I am not to be held accountable for the actions of those who call me family. And I should not hold you accountable for the actions of yours.”

Callum didn’t know if he was meant to be included among that number. Hawk’s gaze didn’t flicker toward him. He might have been speaking of Thaddeus, or even Emilia. He and Callum had never been brothers by blood, after all.

And yet, he might have met with Laena alone.

“Nevertheless,” Laena said. “I am bound to offer my apologies. And my service.”

Aglye would be lucky to have it. Would Silerith join them in unseating Katrina from her stolen throne? Would the Ruthless King emerge from his hermitage to stand against the rise of the mages? Or would the country remain neutral, even rise against them, as the mages staged their return?

Hawk tilted his head, regarding her with open concern. And no small amount of curiosity, Callum thought. As if he planned to catalog every move she made, every response she gave. “I hope you are much recovered from your illness.”

If the change in subject surprised her, she gave no indication. “Indeed, Your Majesty.”

“I’m given to understand,” he said slowly, “that you are willing to overlook certain knowledge you now have about me.”

Laena met his gaze, unflinching. “I do not see any reason to overlook it. I suggest we might choose to embrace it.”

Callum nodded, as if the statement had been a test. One that Laena had passed.

“A noble suggestion, Princess. I hope it is not too much to hope that our people will also choose to embrace the power.”

“If introduced to it carefully, and by stages, I see no reason to think otherwise,” she replied.

Callum had the sense, as he had at the magepool, that there was something happening below the surface of the conversation. Some hidden meaning he could not quite grasp. Some part of him screamed that he did not want to, that he should stay in ignorance as long as he could.

That would do nothing to help Laena, or anyone else.

He stepped forward. “We need…” He cleared his throat. “I hope, Your Majesty, that we may find a way to help Etra.”

Hawk studied Callum for a long moment. And then he rose, closing the space between them in two long strides to stand before Laena. He offered her his hands.

She accepted them. Callum’s gaze fell on their joined hands. A show of friendship. A show of support.

“We do need to help Etra,” Hawk agreed, directing his response to Laena even though the statement had been Callum’s. “As we need to help all the Vales. Which is why I would like to ask for your hand in marriage. Officially.”

The room tilted. There was no way he could have heard that correctly.

“That’s ridiculous.” The words left his mouth before he even knew he’d thought them.

When Laena turned to face him, he could see her response in her eyes, and the answer to why she’d been so quiet during the walk over here.

“It’s not that ridiculous,” she said.

It felt like the floor was dropping out from beneath his feet, like everything he’d hoped for was being ripped away. She didn’t want this. She couldn’t .

“I suppose Katrina wouldn’t have had it in mind, not truly,” Hawk said. “But I did. I believe she baited me. Perhaps I would have seen it, if I was not so intent on finding a wife before everyone learned of my magic.”

Callum shook his head. His thoughts felt thick, his mind foggy as he fought to contemplate what this meant. What this could possibly mean.

“The king with forbidden magic marries the disgraced princess who can’t complain,” Laena said. “Do I have that right, Your Majesty?”

She was asking Hawk, but she was looking at Callum. He knew what it meant for her to be forced to say it out loud. Someone less bold would have avoided the truth, would have let Hawk tell her a pretty lie without protesting. But not Laena. Never Laena.

Hawk had the grace to look ashamed, his cheeks reddening. “Happily, it turns out we both have magic,” he said, neatly sidestepping the admission. “Undeniably complementary magic. Combined, we can face Queen Katrina. We can stop the mages from returning.”

Callum couldn’t believe what he was hearing. What they were both saying, as if they were already a united front. Just as they had been during that fight, their magic blending together so effortlessly.

But she couldn’t marry Hawk. Not with the memory of her lips against his seared into his mind, the feel of her hips shifting beneath him, her hands on his body. Not when her laugh echoed in his ears, her teasing, her pain. Her power.

And she felt it, too. By the blazing demon mages, he knew that she did.

“You can face her without marrying ,” Callum said. Surely they could. It was just magic, just an alliance. It should not necessitate them binding themselves to one another.

Laena pressed her lips together until they went white with the effort. He thought she might be trying not to cry. “But I do not think we can,” she whispered. “The Vales chose us to lead.”

And she felt an obligation, once more, to a crown she’d set aside. Not for her own sake, but for someone else’s.

Callum shook his head. She was not going to do this. She couldn’t sacrifice herself this way.

Laena blinked once, as if clearing the tears from her eyes, then turned back to Hawk. “I accept your proposal,” she said. “I’ll marry you.”