Chapter Nineteen

C HAPTER N INETEEN

I wake up the next day with a new positive outlook towards Darius and me. Most will think I am stupid to try to go back to the dungeons and visit him, but avoiding him won’t help our situation any better.

After the princesses left with the Galgr, Freya, Link and Illias all tried to dissuade me from going through with it, not to mention Idris’s reaction when he found out the actual truth of what happened between Lorcan and Darius. But instead of arguing with me, he left the room with a whispering grumble about how he was getting too old for this.

When I descend the steps into the dungeons and walk along the hallways, I see Darius lying on his back, knees up and his forearm draped over his eyes as I arrive outside his cell. I spot the mark on his abdomen again, and I remember how I told Freya about it after what happened yesterday. She said it was a linking rune and promised to investigate it with Leira and Aelle as a way to break his connection with Aurum. But time is moving fast, and I am wondering how long we have left until Aurum comes in search of the stones and Darius.

‘Do you usually stare at people without saying a word, Goldie?’

I blink over at Darius, though he still doesn’t seem to move his arm away from his eyes. ‘And are you always this perceptive?’

His laugh wraps around my throat like a lover’s grip, making it hard to swallow. ‘Your scent is quite powerful.’ He sits up and turns to look at me. The small window above him casts a shadow over his face. ‘Reminds me of a jasmine flower.’

I roll my bottom lip between my teeth. ‘Is that so?’

He slowly nods, narrowing his eyes as he rises to his feet. Striding towards me, it’s as if he forgets there’s a barrier between us. He inspects the metal bars with furrowed brows and shakes his head, turning away from me. ‘So, what will we be doing today? A nice stroll around the palace? Perhaps a visit to the main towns? Or, my favourite, eating a fine meal with the Aerian warriors? I must say I do quite fancy some mutton with a nice tankard of ale to accompany it.’

His sarcasm is duly noted. I hate him being here as much as he does.

Sighing, I want to tell him how sorry I am, but I am no better than everyone else who keeps him locked up here.

‘Hello, Darry!’

Oh, Solaris, no.

I glance to my right, where Tibith is now waving animatedly at Darius. Panic swirls in my chest, anticipating that Darius will react in a way that will upset Tibith.

Yet when he whirls around, his head slants to the side in curiosity, and he smiles. ‘Hello, and you are?’

‘Do you not r-remember me?’ Tibith twirls around before puffing out his chest with confidence. ‘I am Tibith, your greatest friend and thieving partner, as you like to say!’

My lips peel back into a grin, and when Darius laughs, all my worries seem to float away.

Darius kneels and leans forward as if about to let Tibith in on a secret. ‘Tell me . . . Tibith, right?’ A nod from Tibith has Darius continuing. ‘If you are my greatest friend, what are some things I enjoy doing?’

Tibith beams. ‘That is easy! You like to steal bread with me; you don’t like sleeping on beds, so you give me all the cushions to sleep on; and you enjoy spending time with Miss Nara without wearing any clothes—’

‘I think he gets it, Tibith.’ My cheeks flush with mortification, but Darius looks at me and cocks an eyebrow.

A smirk forms in the corner of his mouth. ‘Had you started with that, Goldie, I would have been much more willing to comply.’

My lips twist in disapproval, but that only makes Darius chuckle as I turn away from him and crouch down. ‘Come on, Tibith.’ I jerk my head in the direction of the stairs.

His ears droop and I know that means he is disappointed. ‘But I want to stay with Darry.’

‘We can visit him tomorrow.’ Softness eases my tone, and I smile at him to seal the promise. It was selfish of me to keep him away in the first place, despite knowing Illias would argue that it was me protecting Tibith from uncertainty.

Tibith gives me that look again. The one it is hard to say no to. ‘Really?’

I nod and stand up. When I look back at Darius, his attention is solely focused on me. Tibith and I turn around and head out of the cell. Tension trembles between us like an unbreakable rope as Tibith waves goodbye, and Darius shakes his hand once back at him.

As we leave the dungeons, I squint my eyes at the sun carving its pathway across the brick archways of the palace grounds. Tibith and I look at each other, and I keep that promise that he will see Darius again – the very next day, we bring him breakfast, and it starts to feel like before. When it was us three against the centipede, us three against poisonous vines, and us three against Renward.

When the second day came, Tibith left Darius and me to be by ourselves. He brought a loaf of bread he took from the palace kitchen and he wanted us to share it. ‘Bread is the most romantic food of them all, Miss Nara,’ he’d said, and I suppose I couldn’t let him down by declining.

During the evenings, Gus would come by, though it never became easier watching him and Darius converse when I knew the truth, and he did not.

On the third day, Darius wanted to play a game. A game of guessing things about me. And when he showered me with teasing insults rather than compliments, I found myself smiling more than usual. Until, of course, he brought up Gus.

‘Are you close with Gus?’ he had asked out of curiosity.

Shame turned sour in my mouth as I looked down at my hands instead of at Darius. ‘He has been as kind to me as he has been to you.’

He had mulled my words over, and there was a moment there where he saw right through me. He wasn’t sure what exactly it was, but I hadn’t done a perfect job at hiding my guilt, and despite his memory loss, he recognised my mannerisms of unease. Perhaps he could even feel the slight quickening of my heartbeat.

Thankfully, on the fourth day, it was all forgotten as he used a fork from his supper and bent it into the shape of a poorly made flower. He handed it to me with a smile that dented his cheeks, and I laughed before sniffing it and telling him it smelled nothing like a flower.

That was the first time in days that I had witnessed a genuine laugh from him that I hadn’t seen in a while.

Then, once the fifth day came, I asked him to tell me a story. He didn’t understand why and even insisted he was not a storyteller. My rebuttal was that it was one of the many things he enjoyed. He studied me thoughtfully, and it wasn’t long until he began a tale about a thief and his search for the golden princess.

I do not think he ever realised it was his life that he was retelling, and as the sixth day dawned, I brought Freya along with me. Together, we thought she could try to use her magic to sever the link between Darius and Aurum.

In the dim light of the cell, Freya extended her palm towards Darius’s rune; the only thing separating them was the cell doors. I waited and waited and waited as I fixated on Darius, our eyes locked. Then a vibrant purple glow emanated from Freya’s hand until . . . she stopped and turned to me, disappointment etched across her face as she shook her head.

It hadn’t worked.

On the seventh day, Darius’s mood was no longer like the days before. He was . . . much more contemplative, let’s say.

Tibith and I visited him as soon as we awoke, not even attempting to try to eat breakfast with everyone else. I took plates of fresh fruit and pastries and rushed down to the cell so that I could see him. Except, it has now been over an hour, and he hasn’t touched his food. Not once, and neither has he spoken.

With Tibith playfully rolling around in the far-left corner of the dungeons, I inhale a deep breath as I go to speak, but he cuts me off before I can even begin.

‘Do you know how the Rivernorths first came to be?’

The slow scanning of his eyes on me has my skin tingling.

I nod. ‘I have heard things, yes.’ Hira has even mentioned the tragedy of the Rivernorth line before, but I know . . . I know that bloodline can be salvaged with Darius.

‘My uncle says they were the first of the dragon kind. Born out of the Northern Rivers, immune to steel, and hard to kill with just any weapon.’ He cocks his head. ‘Sounds ludicrous, doesn’t it?’

I look towards Tibith, who is now watching us with glowing eyes. ‘With a world like this, hardly.’

Darius’s hum has a lilt to it. ‘True.’

My chest is heaving with a sigh that I can’t seem to evade as I face him again. ‘What else has your uncle said?’

He smiles. ‘Trying to get information out of me, Goldie?’

I shrug. ‘Perhaps. Unless you wish for me to bribe you, I have a few gold antique pieces I could steal for you.’

He raises an eyebrow in interest at my offer. ‘Where?’

I laugh and straighten up, brushing the dirt from the side of my leather trousers. ‘Oh, I can’t tell you that.’ As Darius lifts himself off the floor, he grabs on to one of the bars while leaning his shoulder against it. ‘It’s too risky, especially for someone who recalls never being a thief himself.’

He knows I am goading him. My taunt practically makes his eyes brighten with pleasure as his head bobs while humming. He searches his trouser pockets for something before taking out a sharpened bone pick and waving it in front of us.

My eyes dart to the mound of bones by the side of his cage, and trepidation mixed with desire swims in my vision as I glance back at Darius. He’s smirking at me as he picks at the lock with the skills of a professional.

The gate clangs open and I stumble back, watching Darius exit the cell.

‘Darry, you are free!’ Tibith squeaks, earning a soft chuckle from Darius.

I shake my head, my jaw almost hanging wide open. ‘How did you—’

‘I figured out a few days ago that I am rather good at lock-picking.’ He eyes the bone pick before throwing it over his shoulder as he takes a step towards me, then another.

My feet shuffle backwards the closer he gets. ‘And yet you haven’t tried to escape.’ When there is no room left behind me except for an empty cell, I grab on to the bars. Darius, however, cages me in with both hands on either side of my head.

‘I’ve come to quite enjoy talking to you these days.’

‘So, you have willingly spent time inside this cell when you could have been out there, free?’ The thought is thrilling.

He grins. ‘Sounds ludicrous , doesn’t it?’

Repeating that phrase turns me red as I watch the words roll from his lips in pure seductive bliss and find myself breathlessly saying, ‘Yes, truly inane. The Aerians would not be happy in the slightest.’ I attempt to sneak a peek elsewhere, but his gaze pulls me in; I can’t control it. I swallow. ‘Neither will Gus or Lorcan—’

‘Are you happy, though?’ He’s staring at my mouth, and I’m not sure how much longer I can restrain myself.

‘Delighted.’ The word comes out softer than I would have liked.

The answer excites him. He leans in and whispers against my ear, ‘So, if I were to kiss you, would you try to lock me back inside?’

Solaris.

‘I never wanted you to be locked in in the first place,’ I say equally quietly. ‘You just happened to infuriate almost everyone living inside the palace.’

He looks at me, and my legs almost buckle.

‘Tibith?’ He keeps his eyes fixed on me even as Tibith hums in response. ‘Close your eyes.’

I don’t look to see if Tibith has closed his eyes because the next thing I know is that my restraint is long gone, and I’m grabbing Darius by the neck of his shirt as his lips smack against mine in desperate need.

Three months is too long to have gone without feeling the touch of his lips. Three months is a crime against us, knowing that I do not want this moment to ever end.

My legs are sore and sensitive from being wedged between his, and yet we’re animals fighting to kiss each other harder. His hands are in my hair, rough and eager, making a groan sound low in his sternum.

He is kissing me as if he needs me in order to live. As if he thirsts for me.

His stubble scratches my face as our heads move to the motion of our lips. It doesn’t feel like enough, and he knows it just as much as I do. I’m greedy for more of him, for the taste and scent of his skin upon mine.

Until he breaks off the kiss, jerking away from me as if I have stabbed him right in the heart.

I’m breathing wildly, my chest heaving as my lips tingle at the loss of him.

He runs a hand over his mouth and shakes his head. I can’t tell what he is thinking; I can hardly think myself. All my mind keeps yelling is for him to tell me he remembers. To tell me our kiss did something.

‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

Five words – five words that ruin me.

He can’t look at me. He doesn’t want to.

I glance over at Tibith, his eyes wide and despondent as he stares at the both of us.

‘Why?’ I whisper, and anger surges me forward when Darius doesn’t answer. ‘Is it because you’re afraid to remember who we once were?’

His jaw pops, yet he still does not reply.

Frustration swells inside my chest and I can’t contain the burst of energy that leaves me. ‘Say something, for Solaris’s sake!’

‘It’s because he won’t let me!’ He turns to me, forcing the words out through clenched teeth. I balk, and his expression softens with remorse as he adds quietly this time, ‘He won’t let me remember.’

I hate what he means by that, and I hate it even more that I can’t do anything to fix it myself.

I reach out and wrap my hands around his arm to bring us closer. His eyes widen in shock as his head whips around to look at me. ‘He is not your family,’ I say. ‘He never was. He’s hurting you, Darius, and I know that you are stronger than this.’

Our eyes lock, and a shadow of aching torment passes over his eyes. It is as if he is too exhausted to fight for himself. Whatever Aurum did in those three months makes my stomach turn at the thought.

‘What did he do to make you like this?’ I whisper with muffled rage.

He drags his gaze from mine to the empty and cold prison hallway. He has a vacant look to him suddenly as he says, ‘Nothing. He did nothing.’

Tibith toddles over and grabs my calf. He looks up at me with a heartbreaking gaze, feeling for the one person who has stood by him for so many years.

I want to call Darius out on the lie but can’t. Part of me knows that he doesn’t believe it to be a lie. Inside his mind, he thinks he is telling the truth. That everything Aurum has told him is true.

I bite my lower lip; frustrated tears blur my eyesight, and then the worst thought comes to me – the very vision that the Galgr showed me, where Darius was in front of me, just how he is now, his expression pained as he begged me to kill him.

Stop, just stop , I beg my mind. My head turns to the side, my breathing becoming heavier the more I think about it.

I won’t let it happen.

I can’t.

I won’t .

Squeezing my eyes tightly shut for a second, I take a deep breath before putting on a front as if the kiss had never happened, as if the vision of Darius asking me to kill him never existed, and I force myself to smile. Even though it feels as if I am dragging a knife across the sides of my lips. ‘Can you still fly?’

He blinks from his stupor and swivels his focus back on me.

His brows push together into a pensive frown. He looks saddened. Disappointed even. ‘Not on command.’

Suppressing the surge of anger that wells up my throat in response to the extent of Aurum’s control over Darius, I opt for another feigned smile. ‘Then we will search for a loophole.’ I pivot away from him, whistling over at Tibith to follow before glancing briefly over my shoulder. ‘I assume you’ll know how to ride a dragon, considering you are one.’

A chuckle escapes his lips, lacking complete sincerity, but he nods and saunters over to me. ‘Lead the way then, Goldie.’