13. Byron

13

BYRON

T he princess opened her eyes, and I took my first real breath in what felt like days.

No, not felt . It had been days, at least if my spotty and exhausted memory served.

With a thud, I flopped onto my back on the blanket under me. My friends had set it up three—no, four?—days ago when we reached this hillside, miles from where the cursed apple trees had attacked, and it had become clear continuing our travels was not going to be an option.

Saving Gwyneira took precedence. I couldn’t even compensate for something as simple as the rocking of a carriage when all my focus, all my magic and energy and soul , were needed to rescue our princess from the darkness that wanted to steal her away.

Again.

A pained whimper left the princess, but my friends were there, gathering around her as if each was trying to be the one to help her if needed. Meanwhile, the humans hung back with looks that ranged from curious to wary.

Valeria’s orders still held sway, however. While she’d sent a few human survivors on horseback to warn Lord Thomas about the poisonous apple trees that had ripped through the earth, she’d commanded the rest to stand guard. Or, more specifically, for the humans to protect us while “that giant did whatever the hell he’s doing.”

Blunt words or not, I appreciated the sentiment. From the way Valeria’s eyes frequently went to the horizon, she was worried for her lord. I suspected it was more than worry, and likely love that made her send those riders to warn him. But still she stayed, following his command to guard the princess and making sure those under her charge did the same.

At the moment, I was more grateful than ever for it. I ached all over and doubted I could form words right now, to say nothing of helping with an attack. Wrung out like a sodden rag, my skills had been reduced to lying here, holding this blanket on the earth.

But the exhaustion was worth it, if only because Gwyneira was still with us.

I stared up at the night sky, a distant part of my mind listing the constellations and using them to calculate the approximate date. I didn’t particularly care about the result, but I could no more turn off my brain than I could fly to the stars themselves.

Gods, how many times had we almost lost her? I’d say I had lost count, but the truth was I only wished I had. Because every time was one too many, and each weighed on me like a boulder crushing my soul.

And this time might have been the worst of all. No, it hadn’t been like when we found her dead in the forest, or when the vampire king took her and we had no idea where she’d gone.

But what it had taken to save her this time, what happened in those days of endless toil to bring her back to life…

A horrible, warm-cold shiver rolled through me, radiating from my middle. The others didn’t know, and I wouldn’t tell them. Not unless Gwyneira?—

“Here. Drink.”

Casimir’s voice came from somewhere to my right, startling me from my thoughts. When I rolled my head to the side, I found him holding a small cup.

“It’s only water,” he said to my questioning look, a wry glint in his eyes. As I struggled to rise, he was there to assist me in sitting up, his vampire strength more than compensating for our difference in size.

A breath escaped me after the water was gone. “Thank you.”

He nodded, but his attention was only partially on me. Clay and Lars were helping Gwyneira to her feet, while Dex and Ozias were at the ready to catch her if anything should go wrong.

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “Go help Gwyneira.”

Gratitude flashed over his face, but still he paused before leaving. “Well done, my friend.”

Would he say that if he knew what this truly took?

Thankfully, he didn’t seem to need a response. Nodding once more to me, he joined the others.

For a moment, I debated staying put, but the gnawing anxiety in my gut was growing stronger by the second.

After all, the princess might glance my way and then, maybe, questions would come.

Biting back a groan, I pushed to my feet and walked away as steadily as I could.

I probably looked like a staggering drunkard.

Scowling at myself, I kept going. I knew I should be ashamed of fleeing like this, but I couldn’t help that. Humans stared as I retreated, and it wasn’t until I reached the far side of the carriage that they seemed to decide Gwyneira should have more of their focus than me.

Thank the gods.

I leaned against the black lacquered wall of the carriage, closing my eyes. My body was waking up slowly to the fact I hadn’t eaten in days, and my limbs were steadily becoming shakier for their awareness of that lack. On my own, the amount of power I’d just expended would probably have killed me, though even now I couldn’t find it in myself to care.

There hadn’t been a choice. No one else could help. Not the demon or any of my friends. Casimir had tried, as his power was the closest to mine in a way, but even he couldn’t stay long in that endless night. It drained him, dragging at his soul and sanity. If not for Ruhl somehow anchoring him here, I feared we would have lost him to the darkness too.

And that had left me as Gwyneira’s only hope. The only one out of us all whose magic was enough like hers to even stand a chance of bringing her back. My friends’ magical gifts held affinities to elements of the natural world. Wood and water and the like. But my affinity was to energy itself. And though, yes, on some level, even solid matter was energy, I couldn’t manipulate fire or wood or water the way they could.

But I could reach through the cosmos itself to find our treluria.

Shivers cascaded over my skin at the memory. Bright and crystalline energy, shining like a star in the eternal night. To the others, she’d been lost, and even Casimir’s gifts from the angels couldn’t find her light.

But she called to me.

She always called to me, even in the darkest night, even in the empty realms themselves—or as near to them as anyone could survive. She was there.

I would cross them all to save her.

Footsteps came from the camp, pulling my eyes open again. Biting back a groan, I pushed away from the carriage, trying to stay upright on legs that felt as weak as grass blades. But thankfully, the footsteps moved away a moment later, and in relief, I sagged back against the black lacquered wall again.

I knew I’d need to face the others sooner or later, if only to find something to eat. But more than food, my body craved something I could never, ever give it. Something that surpassed even the intensity of my power touching her body when I cast the spell to protect her from the sunlight.

Something I never should have known in the first place, and that was the entire problem.

She ran through the palace, laughing, as her pigtails bounced against her back and her pet marmoset squeaked with alarm. The little brown creature with its white tufted ears was a gift from a trading vessel that had landed to the south last month. A pet for the princess, they’d said. She had adored it from the first moment she cradled it in her arms.

Servants jumped out of the way as she ran, some of the higher-ranking ones calling admonishments to be careful, but she ignored them all. The walls rang and echoed strangely with her laughter, the twists and turns of the castle bending the sound in a way that seemed wrong, but she never noticed. Even when the stones shifted beneath her feet to keep her from falling, it never struck her as odd.

It never would.

But the marmoset would only be a part of her life for a few months before it would disappear one day, never to be seen again. Her stepmother would claim it ran away and that the princess had been irresponsible with its care, and though in her memory, the princess believed her, there was no way the words could have been true. She’d treasured that creature, same as she treasured her friendships that would inexplicably always come to sudden ends and the letters she’d write to those friends that would never be returned.

She had been so trusting, never knowing she was putting her faith in a creature who was systematically isolating her and who would only ever see her as a pawn and as prey.

Time passed and the memories changed. She grew older, turning from a small child into a young woman. Seated with her legs curled up beneath her skirts, she nestled in a padded leather chair in the back corner of a library so beautiful, it should have made the gods weep. A stack of dusty tomes on Aneiran history sat on the polished wooden table beside her, assignments from her tutors. Another enormous book was in her lap, held up as if she was reading it intently.

But a second, smaller book rested secretly on its pages. One made of thin paper and held together by little more than string, as if it was scarcely worth binding. One she’d just found tucked away in a back corner of the library, hidden like contraband, its original owner unknown.

And that book… was magic.

Not magic like witches and giants wielded. Not the kind that, at the time of this memory, she still feared. No, this was the magic of possibilities. Of windows opening in her mind, revealing a life she could scarcely imagine living. A life where pleasure mattered. Where love mattered. Where women were more than mere ornaments to adorn the arms of men, bearing them children and managing their homes as if that could only ever be the extent of their dreams.

This book was the beginning, and there would be others. “Silly” romance stories she would find secreted away in the far corners of dusty shelves. Together, they would open her eyes to dreams and desires and beautiful possibilities she had never imagined. They’d form the cracks in the walls of Aneiran propriety and culture that would one day lead a princess to challenge her entire nation, all to save the lives of giants she’d only ever been taught to fear.

Together, these books would change the world.

A breath rushed from me, and I swiped a hand across my face, dashing away the prickling in my eyes. Gods, did she know how magnificent she was? Had anyone told her? This breathtaking woman who sought out books the ways others sought light and food and air? Who’d studied everything her tutors gave her and more, yet never let that be the end of what she learned?

I’d never felt awe for the gods the way I felt awe for her.

Sheltered in a life where she had every reason to conform to how she’d been taught to think, she’d still chosen a different way. Despite her tutors’ best efforts, she’d held strong to her secret conviction that there was more to reading than merely memorizing facts or her forebears’ ways of thinking. She’d clung to the belief there was beauty and love and creativity and worlds upon worlds to discover.

All within the pages of books.

It was so like, and yet unlike, my own road. I’d adored books and learning, stories and myth, ever since I was a small child in the massive halls of the Order. But for me, being part of the world of books meant making certain choices.

Ones that were the opposite of hers.

A sharp breath entered my lungs as thunder rumbled on the horizon, promising a storm to come. I shouldn’t have been able to see those things. I almost wished I hadn’t.

Except… it hurt to think that. No, it wasn’t right that I knew this about her. But now that I did, it was all so… dammit, so beautiful that I never wanted to let it go.

And so shameful that it burned like a hot coal in my hand.

Because while following her passion for knowledge and reading had led her to change the world, for me it meant turning my back on the very things she’d discovered in those precious books.

Love. Passion. Everything my treluria and I should have been able to share.

“Byron?”

I froze, curse words from every language I knew blurring through my head in an instant.

Gwyneira stepped around the side of the carriage.

Carefully concealing any trace of my reaction, I shifted my weight to face her. “Yes?”

My voice was still rough from days without much food or water, and cold besides, but she didn’t care. She walked closer.

I remembered several curse words I’d left out.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

My internal swearing went silent. That was her question? Everything she’d gone through, the fact she could have died, and she asked about me?

Gods, how did one begin to deserve her?

Fighting down the tangle of anguish, need, and awe that was choking me, I kept my voice tightly controlled as I replied, “I’m fine.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw her nod. For a moment, she was silent, and then she asked. “What was that?”

With effort, I kept my face still. “What was what?”

She was silent.

Shame began eating at my gut like acidic rot. Damn me, I was feigning ignorance to save myself when I should have been acting with more honor. I hadn’t intended what happened, no, but I still needed to own up to it rather than acting like a coward and leaving her to?—

“What you did,” she said.

Gods, it felt as if we were sword fighting, each testing the other with careful strikes, seeing where our opponent’s weak points lay.

I didn’t want to be her opponent.

But I didn’t want her to hate me for what had happened either.

And I was starting to fear I really was a coward.

“I reached out to you with my magic,” I said, not looking at her. “Is that what you mean?”

She made a noise of agreement.

And left the answer up to me.

Strike, defend. Strike, defend.

I’d never been good at sword fighting.

“I’m sorry.” My heart began pounding. “I swear, I would never intentionally?—”

“Did you see my memories?”

I froze. Her words felt like a peace offering extended over a possible trap. If I said yes, would she lash out in rage for the violation?

Closing my eyes, I cursed myself silently. I didn’t need to be a scholar to know that was a foolish question. Gwyneira wouldn’t. She’d put distance between us, yes. My friends would take care of beating me senseless.

And I’d deserve every blow.

Bracing myself, I made myself look up. “I’m sorry. Truly. I never meant to?—”

“I saw yours too.”

The sorrow in her eyes brought all my self-protective babbling to a halt.

Oh, gods, I was an idiot .

“Princess…” Every horrible moment of the war raced through my mind, each one made all the more horrible because I might have inadvertently inflicted them on her. “What did you see?”

A heartbeat passed. “The Order.”

Oh, gods, no. They’d died so horrifically, I still had nightmares even after all these years. “I’m so sorry, I never would have wished you to?—”

“I get it now.”

I faltered, my words falling silent so hers could be the ones to emerge. In the distance, thunder came again, closer now.

“I understand why you retreat when the others are with me,” she said. “Why the two of us can’t be like that, even if you once called me your treluria. I saw the day you swore your oaths to the Order. I felt how much it meant to you. How important that is, even now.” A sweet smile crossed her face, but because I knew her, I could still see the trace of sadness in her eyes. “Byron, it was beautiful.”

Quivers spread through me. If this was a sword fight, she’d just cut me to the core. “ B-beautiful ?”

She nodded, a trace of amusement in her eyes like somehow my reaction was endearing.

But then it faded. “I’m so sorry for what happened to them.”

My heart tripped over itself in panic. “Did you see that? The?—”

She was already shaking her head. “Just the day you swore your oaths.”

Relief crushed a breath from my chest.

Her smile returned, kind and soft. She was looking at me like I was something mysterious and incredible, but even that couldn’t fully mask her sadness.

And I couldn’t reach out to her. I couldn’t make her pain better or bask in the wonder of seeing that respect in her eyes. And she’d seen my past, so she knew why I couldn’t.

Somehow that fact didn’t help at all. It should have . A week ago, I likely would have been relieved. Ecstatic even that the woman I couldn’t get out of my mind now understood and accepted that I could never be with her the way the others could. A week ago, I would have seen that as an unequivocally good thing.

It didn’t feel good now.

“Did you see anything about me?” Her brow rose, curious.

“I… I, um…”

“It’s okay to say so.”

The kindness on her face was heartbreakingly genuine. I hesitated all the same, choosing my words carefully. “I saw a marmoset.”

Her smile returned, but once again, it held pain.

It goaded me onward. “It wasn’t your fault, princess. The fact he disappeared. Your stepmother lied to you. I saw how much you cared for that creature. You never would have let him slip away if… if she hadn’t taken him from you.”

I knew I couldn’t prove that last. But I also knew without a shred of doubt that my words were true.

Her gaze dropped to the yellowed grass beneath us. Seconds ticked by before she said softly, “She did, didn’t she?”

“I’m sorry.” My fingers curled as I fought the urge to reach out to her.

She nodded in acknowledgement. “Did you see anything else?”

At my silence, she glanced up again.

“The library.” The words felt like they were being dragged from me by sheer virtue of the fact I couldn’t bring myself to lie. “The day you found the first of those small romance novels you love.”

Her brow rose. “Oh. I, um… Oh, dear.” Her cheeks flushed pink and she chuckled, retreating a step in embarrassment. “Should I apologize? I?—”

“Not at all!” My hands caught hers before I realized what I’d done. Blanching, I released her quickly.

Gods, her skin was as soft as rose petals against the roughness of my own.

Clearing my throat, I shoved that discovery to the depths of my incessantly observant brain. “I… I didn’t mind.”

For a moment, she was still as only a vampire could be still. At last, she gave a tiny nod. “Okay.”

The silence stretched.

“Did, um…” In spite of myself, I motioned for her to sit on the step below the carriage door. She had to be tired, after all.

And gods help me, I didn’t want her to go. Not yet. “Did you ever find out who left them there?”

She hesitated and then sank down. “No.” A rueful smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “I never asked, either. I was too scared someone would take them away if anyone realized they were there.”

“Perhaps when you claim the throne again, you can get more. Create a whole section so you never run out of stories and don’t have to hide what you love.”

And if she did, gods help me, there wouldn’t be a corner in this world that could hide a book she desired. I’d find each and every one. I swore that by Berinlian himself. I’d fill shelf after shelf until she needed whole buildings to house them all.

Just to see her smile.

She glanced up. “I’d like that.”

I couldn’t breathe. That beautiful joy in her eyes stopped my heart and lit up my soul. Words pressed at me, leaving my entire being teetering on the edge of blurting out something I shouldn’t— couldn’t —ever say.

“There you are!” Clay leaned around the rear of the carriage.

I flinched back, a sharp breath shooting into my lungs. On the carriage step, Gwyneira straightened, blinking hard and turning away from me.

Clay gave us both a curious look. “You two okay?”

Did wanting to punch him count?

Shuddering, I drew myself up with effort. I shouldn’t punch him. I should thank him for saving me from making a fool of myself. “Fine.”

He gave me an odd look. “Okay, well, the humans want to get moving, and with this storm coming in, we probably should listen and head out soon.”

I nodded tightly. “I understand.”

He didn’t go.

The urge to punch him was starting to win.

“We’ll be there in a moment,” Gwyneira told him.

That same odd look lingered for a heartbeat. “Okay.” Flashing her a grin, he disappeared back around the corner of the carriage.

Scattered raindrops plopped on my head as if to prove Clay’s point.

Sighing, Gwyneira rose to her feet. Turning to me, she rested her hand gently on my arm, where it looked so delicate and small. “Thank you,” she said softly. “For saving me and… and for everything.”

My mouth moved, searching for an answer and finding only the truth. “Always.”

She smiled.

Even through my coat, I swore I could feel the loss of her warmth when she lowered her hand and walked away.