35. Kiera

Chapter 35

Kiera

My chest warmed even as my eyes prickled.

Gods, how I wanted to keep him. I wanted everything with him.

Every word of kindness and praise, every look of understanding, every kiss that took my breath away. Everything he did seemed to crack open my heart and fill it with him.

Somehow, I’d always known he would be my undoing.

But right now, I didn’t care.

Aiden took a corner of the blanket and cleaned both of us. Then he laid on his side and pulled my body snug against his.

I tucked my face into his shoulder and closed my eyes, breathing him in. I’d never felt such peace.

His fingers traced gentle circles on my skin as the rain pattered on the tent. I let him explore my body, even rolling over for him when he asked.

I tensed when he pressed a kiss between my shoulder blades, on the bed of scars there.

“I owe you for that kiss in the bathhouse,” he murmured. “I told you I take back what is mine.”

His fingers swept down my spine, eliciting a shiver from me.

I turned back over and prodded the scar on his shoulder, remembering the falcon inked there. I wanted to see it again. “You embraced my scars. I wanted to do the same for you.”

His face hardened for a moment, as if an unwelcome memory had passed through his mind. He grasped my fingers and kissed the scars on my knuckles. “Such beautiful, dangerous hands.” Then he dipped his head and kissed the thin scar on my chest.

I tunneled my fingers through his hair and lifted his face. “Where will you go?”

I almost wished I hadn’t asked, but this might be the only time to ask it.

His brows drew down as he studied my face in the dim light. “You mean, after?”

I nodded, a lump already forming in my throat.

“I honestly don’t know,” he admitted. “For all my planning, I’ve never thought much about what comes after. At least not for myself.”

He shifted so that he was lying on his side, propped on one elbow. But our fingers played together on my stomach as if we couldn’t help touching each other.

“Maz will go home to Dagriel,” he continued. “Ruru and Melaena want to stay in the city and pursue a better life under Everett’s rule. Nikella will wander the world as she always does.”

“But what about you?” I asked again. “Will you go back to Twaryn? Be a healer, perhaps?” I added with a small smile.

His throat bobbed, his eyes darting to mine, then away. “I haven’t thought of where I’d go or what I’d do. But rather... who I want to be with.”

My heart pounded. I licked my lips. “And?”

“What is your plan?” he asked abruptly. “For after?”

“I’m not sure either,” I said carefully before giving him the safest answer. “Melaena offered to let me stay on at The Silk Dancer .”

Aiden rolled onto his back, but his hand never left mine. “I see. I suppose you would be safe there. Especially if Everett rids Rellmira of Weylin’s allies.”

Worry tightened my belly. Everett was sweet and gentle, in love with his books. The idea of him ousting people like Renwell and Dracles from their positions didn’t sound like him. But if he was to be king, he had to.

“Would you be happy there?” Aiden asked, interrupting my thoughts.

I will never know. “I suppose. The dancers are nice. I could earn good money. I like to dance. And Melaena is a kind friend.”

Aiden said nothing, just stared at the tent roof.

“But,” I said slowly, “I’ve always wanted to explore a life outside of Aquinon. Before you found me here in the woods, I was contemplating running away through them.” I smiled to let him know I was jesting in part.

He smiled back at me. “I would’ve run away with you.” He brushed a strand of hair from my cheek. “More and more of late, I can’t seem to run in any direction that does not lead to you.”

My heart twirled even as my mind cautioned the impossibility of such a thing. I couldn’t leave my brother if he really did become king. And if he didn’t, if I thwarted Aiden’s plans for assassination, then I would still be chained to Father’s side for the sake of my siblings.

That was if Father let me live when he found out his gods-damned gold was gone.

There was no way out for me. Even if I desperately wished that were true.

Either Aiden would leave the city defeated—or, gods forbid, dead—or he would be the man who killed my father.

But then another option occurred to me.

“Why don’t you want to be king?” I asked. “Why don’t you tell people like Garyth who you really are?”

Aiden’s jaw tightened. “I’m not fit to be king. The things I’ve done... the lives I’ve destroyed. No one would want to put a crown on my head if they knew.”

I frowned. He’d killed a few Shadow-Wolves and stolen from the High Treasurer. He ran a smuggling business and flouted the law. But I’d seen nothing that measured close to the number of my father’s crimes.

“Why?” I whispered

When he didn’t answer, I pushed closer to him, wrapping my arms around him and laying my cheek over his heartbeat. “I haven’t run from any of your other scars, Aiden. Tell me this one.”

He sighed, a long, slow breath I felt empty from his chest. “I fought in Pravara, during the rebellion,” he said in a distant voice.

I continued to breathe steadily and forced my muscles to stay relaxed. But my heart twisted with bitterness.

“I was young and wanted to help the people there who were clearly suffering under the weight of Weylin’s taxes and unfair treatment. Parents could barely afford to feed their children with Weylin taking most of their crops and earnings for himself.” He swallowed hard. “The farmers started fighting back, refusing to give up their harvests and chasing tax collectors out of town. The conflict escalated on each side, with the Pravarans begging the People’s Council to fight for them via the law. But... well... I’m sure you know how that went.”

I certainly did.

All this time, I had been on one side of that rebellion while Aiden had been on the other. Except I’d done little but stand by while the world as I knew it dissolved into chaos.

“I was so angry,” Aiden whispered. “Which made me impulsive. I started teaching them to fight like Nikella had taught me. I hunted down weapons along with other like- minded rebels. We were going to make a true battle of it. But then Dracles came.”

Pain shook his voice. “He descended on us with over five thousand soldiers, armed and trained. Five thousand against a few thousand farmers—most of whom had never even held a sword. It was a massacre. And I—” His voice broke, and he swallowed again. “I was held for questioning, then thrown in a prison wagon bound for Calimber. Too young and healthy to waste,” he finished in a scathing tone.

I was sure there were more details he was leaving out, but now I understood. Why he didn’t want to involve more people than he had to. Why he’d been imprisoned in the mine. And further still, why he hated Father.

His report of the end of the rebellion confirmed what I’d heard. Father had left nothing to chance, spilling every drop of rebel blood he could find. Yet, the most dangerous rebel of all had escaped his fate.

A notion that yielded only gratitude in my traitorous heart.

Aiden lifted my gaze with a finger under my chin. “I owe it to my kingdom, to my people, to my soul to see Rellmira restored. That is why I must do what I’ve planned. And in a week, it will all be over and decided, one way or another.”

My mind stilled. A week, one way or another. Gods, that was so soon. Sooner than Father’s ultimatum.

Aiden continued, “But for the first time, I have hope. Hope that my heart might not be too scarred for a certain beautiful thief to consider stealing the rest of the pieces she hasn’t already taken.”

My eyes burned and blurred, and I let out a choked laugh. “It’s not really stealing if you’re handing that thief the key.”

“I suppose not,” Aiden said with a smile that warmed my soul. “But she was always good at stealing those, too.”

I melded my lips to his, trying to banish every fear and loss I felt at his words, at the idea of having to let him go in seven days. One way or another.

He kissed me back like he would never have enough. Like we had more than today, more than a week. Our limbs tangled together and remained that way until we finally fell asleep at dawn.

I never answered him because I couldn’t. My heart whispered words that I didn’t dare release.

Because we were doomed. We always had been.

We slept for several hours until the heat of midday turned the tent stifling. With soft touches and stolen looks, we dressed and packed up the tent. Twice, I caught him humming a soothing tune deep in his throat. The sound made me smile.

We ate breakfast at The Twisted Tail and returned the bartender’s tent and bedroll. Aiden paid him extra to get it laundered.

All too soon, we were back on our stolen, well-rested horse, headed for Aquinon with a stream of other travelers.

Aiden walked part of the way so he could show me how to sit properly and use my knees to guide the horse. He said it would be easier with a saddle, but he hadn’t had the time to grab one.

I frowned at the shimmering green fields rolling toward the distant sea. “That stuff that Nikella threw on the ground and set on fire. What was it?”

Aiden took a moment to answer. He’d grown more and more reticent as we neared Aquinon. “Something of her own invention. She needed to test it.”

“I’m guessing her test was successful,” I said, remembering the wall of flame that seemed to rise from nothing.

“We’ll see,” Aiden said evasively.

I’d already tried to ask him about Nikella and Renwell at breakfast, but he’d quickly shaken off the question, saying it was her business. I doubted she would answer my questions either. And Renwell was one of the last people in Rellmira I wanted to talk to at the moment.

We plodded along in silence until we reached the enormous city gate. We’d hidden our knives in a farmer’s wagon ahead of us, stuffed in the hay beneath a half-dozen sheep’s hooves.

But that wasn’t why my heart pounded with fear, screaming at me to run as we passed under the shadow of the gate.

I felt like I was willingly stepping back into a cage, as unprepared for slaughter as the sheep in front of me.

Guards roughly checked each person for weapons and demanded their business. I frowned when I saw Gregor was among them. As much as I didn’t want someone to come to harm for helping us, I’d assumed Renwell would’ve taken everyone for questioning, punishing those who were to blame for our escape.

But other than a few mild burns and scrapes, Gregor looked fine.

Aiden also pulled up short when he saw him. Gregor waved him over. I slid from the horse’s back—catching myself this time—and walked the horse to him.

“Where are the other horses?” Gregor demanded in a low voice, his beady eyes flicking to me.

“On their way back,” Aiden said smoothly. “Like I said, I’ll pay you extra for the inconvenience.”

Gregor sneered. “Inconvenience, yeah. Your companion sets fire to the street, and you steal three horses. That’s more than an inconvenience . I want double,” he hissed.

Aiden stiffened. “I’ll give you what I can, but you’re getting your horses back, Gregor, and the fire was mostly harmless.” He leaned closer to the sweaty man, his face rigid with warning. “Don’t forget you have just as much to lose as I do if there’s talk.”

Gregor paled, his eyes skipping to me once more. “Fine, whatever. Move along then.” He seized the reins from my hand and hurried away.

Aiden scowled after him.

“Pleasant man,” I muttered.

Aiden shook his head. “He has a right to be worried. He’s lucky he didn’t face a fiercer punishment.”

We hurried after the sheep wagon and thrust our hands in the hay to retrieve our weapons. No one paid much attention to us, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. It wasn’t like Renwell to leave someone unpunished. Coming back to the city felt too easy.

We’d barely finished re-arming ourselves when Ruru barreled up to us, his eyes wide and his hair sticking up on all ends.

“Have you seen Maz?” were the first words out of his mouth.

Dread pummeled my insides.

“No, what happened?” Aiden asked sharply, pulling both of us off to the side. “Where is he?”

Ruru’s face screwed up in anguish. “I don’t know! We were practicing at the Temple last night. He said he was going for a drink at The Weary Traveler , so I went home. But he wasn’t there when I woke up, and it didn’t look like he’d slept on his cot. Since none of you were home either, I thought maybe he was with you somewhere. I just checked the taverns, and no one’s seen him.” He glanced around. “Where’s Nikella?”

Aiden growled with frustration. “She’ll be back. Did you check the Temple?”

Ruru brightened. “No. Maybe he went back for more training?”

My stomach sank like a stone to the ocean floor. He wouldn’t be there either. “Yes, go to the Temple, Ruru,” I said roughly. “Aiden, you should meet with Melaena. Tell her what happened.” I gave him a pointed look. “And see if Maz might have stopped by to visit one of the dancers. I’ll search the taverns and inns again.”

Ruru took off without another word. But Aiden hesitated, his green eyes searching my face. “Are you all right? Do you want me to stay with you, and we’ll search together?”

I shook my head, forcing a smile. “I’ll be fine. The sooner we find him, the sooner we can force him to buy us all some Sunshine for making us worry.”

Aiden nodded. He clasped my hand once before he, too, disappeared.

I took a deep breath, my fingers already trembling, then raced toward The Crescent Moon .

Please, please, don’t be there. Holy Four, let me be wrong. Let there be no mark on the wall.

I skid to a halt in the dirty alley, my panicky gaze searching for his mark. But there was only our old one. Nothing new. No sign that Renwell was calling for me.

I heaved a sigh of relief?—

Just as a bag descended over my head, and something hit me hard from behind.

The world went black.