Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29

A sharp swirl of tingles erupted along the back of my neck. That he came for what is his. My heart thudded. That same feeling as before returned, settling in my chest. Rightness. Acceptance.

I leaned forward, clasping my knees. “Are you— ” A burst of nervous energy pounded through me. My body moved without will, turning on the stool, toward the door a second before it swung open, slamming into the table with enough force to rattle the candles.

Hymel stood there, eyes narrowed. “What are you doing in here?”

“Nothing.” I rose, wiping my palms on my thighs. “I was just returning the headpiece I wore last night.”

Hymel’s gaze shot to Maven. “And to do that you had to be sitting down?”

“Maven was a bit unsteady on her feet,” I quickly said, not so much instinct guiding me to lie but just my general distrust of the man. “I got her something to drink and was just making sure she was okay.”

Maven said nothing as she lifted her cup, finishing off the liquor I really hoped Hymel couldn’t smell.

“She looks fine to me,” Hymel growled.

“Yes. Thankfully.” I turned, nodding at Maven. The old woman gave no indication of seeing me or anyone else. I hesitated, wanting confirmation of what I suspected, but she was staring at the candles, and Hymel waited. Stamping down on my frustration, I left the chamber.

Hymel stalked out behind me, closing the door. “What were you in there talking about?”

“Talking? With Maven?” I forced a laugh. “We weren’t talking.”

His upper lip curled. “I heard someone talking.”

“You heard me speaking to myself,” I replied, focusing on him. “And what would it matter if we were talking?”

Hymel’s jaw clenched. “It doesn’t,” he said, glancing at the door and then back to me. “Don’t think you’re needed here.”

Hands opening and closing at my sides, I turned stiffly and walked out from the alcove and through the narrow servants’ corridor. When I reached the doors to the foyer, I looked back and saw that Hymel no longer stood there.

Since he most likely had gone back into Maven’s chamber, there was not a single doubt in my mind that he knew all of what Maven had shared.

Three sōls danced together above the roses as I walked the gardens that evening. I hadn’t ventured too far, able to still hear the music drifting from the lawns of Archwood Manor.

After speaking with Maven, I had searched for Claude, but hadn’t seen him until this evening. There was no chance to talk to him. He was holding a party that likely rivaled what took place during the Feasts. The drive was full of jeweled carriages and the Great Chamber teeming with glittering aristo. I’d spent only a few minutes there, and knew that most had come to catch sight of the lords of Vytrus, and of course, the Prince.

I reached out, running my fingers over the silky petal of a rose. I’d been wrong in my assumption that most of the aristo would abandon the city upon hearing of the impending siege. None of them appeared at all concerned about why they were here, their thoughts consumed with catching a glimpse of the Hyhborn and more.

Which meant none of those in attendance had been with the Hyhborn that morning to prepare for the siege. That wasn’t at all surprising. I still believed that many would be gone once the reality of what was to come settled in.

The Hyhborn weren’t in attendance, and I didn’t know if any of them would eventually show.

I didn’t even know if Thorne had returned to the manor or had come to look for me yet.

One of the sōls dipped down, nearly brushing against my arm before it floated deeper into the roses as I heard Maven’s words echo in my thoughts. That he came for what is his. The warm swirl of tingles rippled across the base of my neck, and that same feeling as before returned. Rightness. Acceptance. I didn’t understand it.

I started walking, unsure if what I felt was from my intuition or not. Having felt only vague premonitions about them before, it was hard to know what fueled the feeling. It was also hard to believe what Maven had said— had suggested.

If she’d spoken the truth, then she was saying that I . . . that I was a caelestia and that was how I’d gained my abilities. Could that be impossible? No. I didn’t know my parents, let alone my ancestry, but Claude had no gifts. I’d never heard of any having abnormal abilities, but both she and Claude spoke of Beylen as if he were different. Divine. As if I were different. Divine. Because we were . . . starborn?

I glanced up at the star-swept sky. Part of me wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of it. Wouldn’t Thorne have, I don’t know, sensed that I was a caelestia? Wouldn’t Claude have just told me this? Why keep it hidden from me? A horrible thought crossed my mind. Could he have kept it hidden from me because caelestias were automatically accepted into the aristo class? Certain opportunities presented themselves. I could seek education if that was what I wanted. I could own land. Buy a home. Start a business—

“No,” I whispered. Claude wouldn’t have kept that from me just to keep me by his side. If it was true, and I was a caelestia, there would be a damn good reason why Claude wouldn’t have told me.

Unless I was incredibly naive, and I wasn’t. At least, I didn’t think I was.

I walked on for several minutes, stopping when I felt the sudden thickening of the air. The brief, unnatural stillness and then the sharp crescendo of humming insects and chattering night birds. Tiny bumps spread across my arms. Awareness pressed upon me.

Slowly, I turned. The breath I took was unsteady as the swelling motion returned to my chest.

Thorne stood on the walkway, a handful of feet from me, dressed in the black sleeveless tunic and pants. A warm breeze toyed with the loose strands of his hair, tossing them against the cut of his jaw. There were no golden glints of weapons on him, at least that I could see, but their absence made him no less dangerous.

And that damn urge— the one to run, to provoke him into giving chase— rose in me again. My muscles tensed in preparation. It was a wild feeling.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he said, drawing several sōls from the air above.

Clasping my hands together, I held myself still. “Were you?”

“I thought you’d be in my quarters or yours.”

“You mean you thought I would be waiting for your return?”

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation.

“You shouldn’t have.” I turned from him, heart pounding as I forced myself to move slowly. To not run. I didn’t look back, because I . . . I knew he followed. A warm shiver curled down my spine.

“I thought we had come to an agreement on this arrangement,” Thorne said, sounding as if he was only a foot, if that, behind me.

“Had we?”

“We have,” he said. “I recall telling you that I would return as soon as I could.”

“But I do not recall agreeing to sitting around and waiting on your return.”

“I didn’t expect you to sit and wait.”

I halted, and faced him. He was close, having approached me in that unnerving silent way of his. “What did you expect then?”

The blue of his eyes was luminous as he stared down at me. “For you not to hide from me.”

“I wasn’t hiding, Your Grace.” I lifted my chin. “I was simply enjoying an evening stroll.”

One side of his lips curled up. “Or were you simply seeing if I would find you?”

I clamped my mouth shut. Had that been why I’d come out here?

His smile deepened.

That he came for what is his.

Pivoting, I nibbled on my lower lip as I began to walk, the gown I’d changed into before supper whispering along the stone path. “You met with the people of Archwood today?”

“I did.” He fell in step beside me.

I kept my gaze trained ahead. “Did many show?”

“Many but not all that could,” he told me, his arm brushing mine as we walked. “Your baron did.”

“What?” Surprise flickered through me as I looked at him. “He did?”

Thorne chuckled. “I was as surprised as you.”

I blinked, focusing ahead. “Did he train?”

“No, but there wasn’t much in the way of training to be had today, as Rhaz needed to differentiate those who had skill with sword or arrow from those who had none,” he said, and I found it amusing, the shortening of their names. Rhaz. Bas. Thor. “You are likely not surprised to hear that most have no such skill.”

“I’m not. Beyond the guards, I doubt many have lifted a sword,” I said. “The only ones who likely have skill with a bow are the long hunters, and they are likely on a hunt. The rest work in the mines.”

“For the most part, it was only they who showed and were eager to learn,” he commented. “Yet they aren’t the only ones capable of defending the city.”

I knew he spoke of the aristo. “I imagine most of them had yet to awaken from their evening pursuits to join,” I said, still stuck on the fact that Claude had gone. “What did the Baron do?”

“He mostly listened and watched, which is more than I expected from him.”

I glanced at him, stomach dipping when our eyes locked. “He’s not completely irresponsible, you know?”

“We shall see,” he replied. “But I believe he is better suited for Court life than to govern a city.”

What Maven had shared with me flickered through my thoughts. I twisted my fingers, having the sense that whatever I asked, I had to do so carefully. “Is that what most caelestias do?”

“Some. Depends on the Court and how they treat caelestias. Some Hyhborn treat them as if they are . . .”

“A lowborn?” I finished for him.

Thorne nodded.

“How so?”

He didn’t answer immediately. “They are treated more like servants than equals.”

I exhaled slowly. “And does that differ from your Court? I’ve always heard that lowborn were not welcomed.”

“They aren’t.”

My head cut toward him. “And here I was beginning to think that what was said about you not liking lowborn was another false narrative.”

Thorne stared ahead. “The Highlands are fierce lands, na’laa. Dangerous for even a Hyhborn to travel without knowledge.”

I thought about that. I knew that the largest portion of the Wychwoods was in the Highlands. “Are there any caelestias that live there?”

“There are. Some are even knights of the Court.”

“Oh.” That made sense, since I knew that many caelestias were in the Royal regiment. I worried my lower lip, searching for a way to ask what I wanted to know and finding it. “I’ve always wondered something. Can you or other Hyhborn sense a caelestia?” I asked as I opened my senses, creating that cord. I came into contact with that white shield, and when I pressed upon it, it did nothing.

He nodded as I severed the connection. “Their essence is different than that of a mortal.”

Well, that threw a wrench into what Maven claimed. The Prince had repeatedly referred to me as a mortal.

“That was an odd thing to wonder about,” Thorne commented.

“I wonder about a lot of odd things,” I said, which was true.

“Like?”

I laughed. “I’d rather not embarrass myself by sharing the things that cross my mind.”

“Well, now I’m all the more interested.”

Snorting, I sent him a look.

There was a pause as we neared the wisteria trees. Only then did I realize how far we’d walked. “Do you wonder about me?”

I had, many times over the years, and even more between the time he first appeared in Archwood and his return. Stopping, I trailed a finger over the lavender-hued blossoms. I’d wondered all sorts of random, irrelevant things. I had questions that were far less important than what I should be thinking about then.

“Do you have family?” I asked, which was something I’d wondered. “I mean, obviously not by blood but something similar?”

“Deminyens do have what would be similar to family— to a sibling,” he answered, lifting a hand. His fingers folded around the thick braid of hair resting over my shoulder. “We are never created alone.” He ran his thumb along the top of the braid as he drew his hand down. “Usually there are two or three created at the same time, sharing the same earth, the same Wychwood.”

“So, in a way, you do have blood . . . siblings?”

His fingers reached the middle of the braid, where it crested over my breast. “In a way.”

“And you? Do you have one? Or two?”

In the soft glow of the sōls, there was a tightening to his jaw. “Just one now.” His brows knitted. “A brother.”

“There was another?”

“A sister,” he said. “Do you ever wonder if you had siblings?”

“I used to.”

“But not anymore?” he surmised.

“No.” Without his focus on the braid, I openly studied the striking lines and angles of his features. “What do you do when— ” My breath caught as the back of his hand brushed against the tip of my breast. The buttery-yellow muslin gown was no barrier to the heat of his touch.

His lashes lifted. Eyes more blue than green or brown met mine. “You were saying?”

“What do you do while you’re at home?”

“Read.”

“What?” I said with a short laugh.

The half grin reappeared. “You seem surprised. Is it that hard to believe that I enjoy reading?”

I reached up to brush his hand away, but my fingers curled around his forearm and remained there. No thoughts intruded, but I did . . . I felt something. The warm whisper against the back of my neck. The sensation I’d felt earlier. Rightness. But was it from me?

Or him?

And what did it even mean?

“Na’laa?”

Clearing my throat, I refocused. “What do you like to read then?”

“Old texts. Journals of those who lived before my creation,” he said. “Things most would find boring.”

“It sounds interesting to me.” Beneath my fingers I could feel the tendons of his arms moving under his hard flesh as he drew his fingers down to the tail end of my braid. “I’ve only ever seen a few history tomes in Claude’s studies.”

“Have you read them?”

I shook my head, realizing that he was being serious. After all, Hyhborn couldn’t lie. Why I kept forgetting that was beyond me. “The pages appear ancient, and I’m too afraid of accidentally damaging them.”

“What else?” His hand left my braid, grazing my stomach to stop along the curve of my waist, and my hand followed as if it were attached to his arm. It was the silent, simple contact I couldn’t let go of. “What else have you wondered?”

If he ever thought of the young girl he’d met in Union City. I’d wondered that many times, but those words wouldn’t come to my tongue. Instead, I asked only what I’d started to wonder today. “If you believed in old legends and rumors.”

“Like?” His hand glided to my hip.

“Like the . . . the old stories of those starborn,” I said, and his gaze shot to mine. “Mortals made divine or something of the sort?”

The blots of brown in his irises suddenly cast shadows against the vibrant blue. “What has made you think of that?”

I lifted a shoulder, willing my heart to remain slow. “It’s just something I heard an older person talking about once. It all sounded fantastical,” I added. “I’m not even sure if it’s something real, so maybe you have no idea what I’m speaking of.”

“No, it was real.”

Was.

I stayed silent.

“And I did believe,” he said.

“What does it even mean though?” I asked.

“It . . . it means ny’seraph,” he said. “And that is everything.”

Everything.He’d said that before, when he spoke of a ny’chora.

“What else?”

Distracted, I shook my head. “Have you ever called anyone else na’laa?”

“No.” A shadow of a smile appeared. “I have not.”

Our gazes locked again, and for some reason, that revelation felt just as important as learning that some of what Maven had said was true.

“I’ve wondered about you,” he said in the silence. “I’m wondering right now.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve told no mortal that I have a brother nor shared that I enjoy reading.”

“Well, I’ve never told anyone I wanted to be a botanist, so . . .”

“Not even your baron?”

I shook my head no.

“That pleases me.”

“Why?”

“That is also what I wonder. Why. Why I would share anything with you, but you already know that,” he said, and the way he said it was as vaguely insulting as it was before. “Even today, when I should be fully focused on those before me, I caught myself wondering what it is about you. It’s still incredibly perplexing and annoying.”

Oookay. I pulled my hand from his arm. “Well, then, perhaps I should leave so I don’t continue to add to this perplexing annoyance.”

The Prince chuckled. “It’s more like I’m a perplexing annoyance to myself,” he said. “And if you left, I would have to follow and I feel like that would lead to an argument when there are far more entertaining things we can do.”

“Uh-huh.” We’d started walking again.

The grin that crossed his lips held a boyish charm that made him seem . . . young and not so otherworldly, and it tugged at my heart. I quickly looked away.

“Dance with me.”

My brows shot up as my head cut in his direction. That I hadn’t expected. “I’ve never danced before.”

He stopped. “Not once?”

I shook my head. “So, I don’t know how to dance.”

“No one knows how to dance the first time. They just dance.” His gaze met mine. “I can show you that, Calista.”

I sucked in a heady breath full of that soft, woodsy scent of his. My name was a weapon. A weakness. I nodded.

My gaze dropped to his hand as he offered it to me. This . . . this felt surreal. My heart was flipping all over the place. And was it my imagination or did the violin from the lawn seem louder, closer? As did the guitar? And was there suddenly a melody in the air, in the night birds’ singing and the humming of summer insects?

“And if I prefer not to?” I asked, my hand opening and closing at my side.

A sliver of moonlight caressed the curve of his cheek as his head cocked. “Then we don’t, na’laa.”

A choice. Another that shouldn’t matter all that much, but it did and I . . . I wanted to dance even if I were to make a fool of myself. I lifted my hand, hoping he didn’t notice the faint tremor in it.

Our palms met. The contact— the feel of his skin against mine— was still startling. His long fingers closed around mine as he bowed his head slightly.

“Honored,” he murmured.

A nervous giggle left me. “I thought Hyhborn can’t lie.”

“We can’t. I spoke no lie.” Thorne tugged gently on my arm, coaxing me closer as he stepped into me. Suddenly, his hips brushed against my stomach, my chest against his. The fleeting contact was sudden, unexpected, and only then did I realize this wasn’t the kind of dancing I’d seen the aristo do at the less wild balls the Baron sometimes held, where there were at least several inches between their bodies and each step was a well-practiced, measured one. This was the kind of dancing the aristo took part in once the masks came out.

His hips swayed and the hand on mine urged me to follow. After a few moments, I realized that this kind of dancing was a lot like making love. Not that I knew what making love felt like. Fucking? Entirely different story, and this didn’t feel like that.

“Silence your thoughts.”

“W-What?” I glanced up, able to see only the lower half of his face.

“You’re stiff. Usually that means your head is not where your body is,” he said. “You’re thinking too much. One doesn’t need to think about their body to dance.”

“Then what do they do?” I asked, because it was hard not to think about how close we were— how tall and broad he was, and how that made me feel dainty, and there was nothing about me that could be described as such. Not even my hands. When he turned, I stumbled over my own feet and maybe his.

“You just close your eyes,” he told me. “Like you did last night, when your fingers were between your thighs and your mouth was on my cock. Just close your eyes and feel.”

I wasn’t sure how bringing up last night was going to help, because the sharp pulse of desire those words elicited was completely distracting, but I closed my eyes.

“Listen to the music. Follow it,” he coaxed, his voice deeper. Thicker. “Follow me, na’laa.”

Breath shallow, I did what it took to use my abilities. I silenced my mind, letting myself listen to the music— to the ebb and flow of violin and the sounds of the night settling around us, charging the air. There was a rhythm, one that tugged at my legs and hips. I followed it and I followed him, my body loosening with each passing minute and my steps becoming lighter. When he turned his body this time, I didn’t stumble. I followed. It was like floating, and I imagined that I was one of the sōls dancing above us— that we were.

And it was the strangest feeling, almost freeing as I danced with the Prince. I moved with the tempo, chasing the strings as they picked up. Sweat dampened my skin— dampened his. Strands of hair that had escaped the braid I’d twisted it into clung to my skin. The sweet-smelling wisteria vines tangled with us as we moved, as my breath came in quicker pants, each inhale causing the tips of my breasts to graze his chest. The gown was so thin that it always felt as if there were nothing between us. I wished it were the same for my hands, because I could feel his chest rise with shallow, longer breaths beneath mine.

His hand at my hip glided across my lower back, leaving a wake of shivers in its path as we spun beneath the wisteria. My pulse quickened, and I didn’t think it had much to do with the dancing. I let my neck loosen, my head tip back as I opened my eyes. Above us, the sōls danced, mostly a blur of soft light as we spun and spun, and somehow his thigh had ended up snug between mine. Each movement I made, each one he gave, created this . . . this delicate, decadent friction.

I followed the music— followed him as the tempo gradually slowed. The realm stopped spinning and we moved in each other’s embrace, the rhythm richer, thicker and throbbing, just like the blood was doing in my veins. Each breath I took felt like it was getting trapped in my throat as my hips moved with the churning music— moved against him. And I felt richer, thicker and throbbing, aching and swollen. The arm at my waist tightened, as did the hand that held mine. Low in my stomach, muscles twisted and tightened in desire, and I could feel him as I moved, a thick part of him harder than the rest against my stomach.

His chest rumbled against mine, and a throbbing dart of pleasure whipped through me. His breath teased the curve of my cheek and then the corner of my lips. He stopped there, but I didn’t. Our bodies still moved, but I wasn’t sure it could be considered dancing at this point. I was grinding against him, and the hand at my hip was encouraging it as a wild sense of abandonment swept over me. That primal urge to run. The feral want for him to chase. That savage need for him to capture.

He stilled completely against me, only his chest rising and falling rapidly. Slowly, I lifted my gaze to his. Bursts of starlight had appeared in the pupils. I didn’t know if it was the dancing or the melody in the air, if it was knowing he called no one else na’laa, or if it was that strange feeling of rightness— it could’ve been all of those things that emboldened me.

I slipped away from him, taking a trembling step back. His head tilted. Tension poured into the space between us and into the air around us.

And I did it.

I caved to that urge.

I turned and ran.