A tiny noise of frustration hummed from Morimaros’s throat. “I would protect you. I can.”
“I don’t want to have to be protected, Morimaros,” she said, biting back her own frustration. “That is a trap, too.”
“Then … encourage you. Support you. We could find a way to be … partners.”
“While I abandon Innis Lear?”
“Elia, you told me you want peace, and to be compassionate, and to follow the stars. That you do not want to be the queen of Innis Lear. I am not asking you to do that, I am only asking you to marry me. Marry me, and then keep up your studies, if you like. I will never allow Aremoria to obey the stars, but that doesn’t mean I would forbid you, or anyone, from listening to them. Be a queen at my side, one who is a diplomat, who is an advisor. Mine. My wife and own guiding star. I won’t ask you to make choices over people’s lives. I won’t make you responsible for anything you don’t want. Bring your father here, or we’ll sail forth and claim him. You can care for him, here in Aremoria. I will give you everything, all you have said you want in this life. Just with a husband, and here, in my home.”
Tears pricked her eyes, because it was everything she’d claimed to want. This king—no, this man—was offering her all of it. But her heart clenched. It twisted, and she knew she could not concede. Elia could not forsake that rough island that had borne her, as much as her parents. Not now that she felt the lack of it, that she finally understood how she’d cut herself off from the rootwaters years ago, before her father banished her. Innis Lear was broken, everyone kept saying so, and Elia had never even noticed. She was as selfish as her sisters. If she abandoned the island, her history, as readily as her father had tried to strip her name, would she ever be able to know herself? Was that why her family made such terrible decisions? Because none knew themselves, but only knew how others defined them, be it the stars or husbands or fathers? Bad enough Elia was forced to wait here until Midwinter, until her sisters allowed her to return. Bad enough to be the youngest, weakest of them. Bad enough her father—who loved her—had also lost himself. If she cut herself away from all of it, Elia knew her regrets would forever haunt her, and her unhappiness might poison this golden land, as her family had done to their own.
But how could Elia of Lear even begin to explain it all to the king of Aremoria? She said, “You would give me all I ask for, Morimaros, and then—and then still could take the crown of Innis Lear from us. Marriage would not stop war.”
“There are many possibilities, not all war. Not all—”
“But you would not be satisfied with only me. I know what they say here about reuniting Aremoria and Innis Lear. You want to be the greatest king in a thousand years. That means taking my island for your own.”
He said nothing.
“You might try to give it back to me, like a gift. If I were your wife. Your queen. Is that what you think?” Elia blinked, and tears rolled down her cheeks, clinging to the line of her jaw. “Do you see? You are above me.”
“What? No.” Morimaros shook his head in emphatic denial. “You are already royalty, the daughter of kings and—and empresses. Never beneath me.”
“That’s how I feel. Disempowered, with no authority. If I marry you as I am, it would be like locking that into place.” The realization took Elia’s breath away. This was it: the core truth. She had to make herself into—something. Her choice. Before she could hold any power over herself or others. “I can’t abandon Innis Lear to you, and marrying you now would do exactly that.”
“I’m asking only for you, Elia. And nothing else.”
“You know that isn’t how it works. You are never only you, and I—I don’t even know what I can be!”
“I’m sorry,” Morimaros said, low with regret. “This is still too soon. I’m making everything worse.”
He turned, but Elia grasped his elbow. The tears fell into the air. “It is not too much. I am not breaking again. Tears are not a sign of such calamity.” She curled her hands around his wrist, pressing his hand to her heart. “I cannot hide here with you, I cannot be small when Innis Lear needs help. I—I cannot let you be my strength. I let my father be that for me, let him protect me, hide me away, coddle me, so that I would not be sullied with the emotions of life, or face any distress. So that I would not become my sisters. I won’t make such a mistake again. My giving my all to one man, even one I might learn to trust, is how he alone was able to take everything I thought I was.”
“I wouldn’t do that. I’m not your father.”
“I promise you I do not see you as such a king as he. But I…” Elia lifted his hand and kissed his knuckle. She let herself breathe against the back of his hand as his fingers trembled. She turned his hand over and kissed the center where the skin was softer than where Morimaros would grip his sword.
At the touch of her lips to his palm, Elia shivered. Heat spiraled in the small of her back. When she breathed, she was suddenly aware of the press of her breasts against the stiff bodice, and her bare feet against the tickling grass. She had not felt so alive in her body in years and years, not since—
Gasping, Elia let go. She backed away, hands clamped together over her heart.
“Elia.”
That was all he said, without demand, or even longing: only her name, hovering there like a soft moon moth.
“I can’t marry you,” she
