“I do thank you all for coming days earlier for her. We have much to discuss before she arrives. I’d like to make sure we are all on the same page.” Rhaif leaned forward and clasped his hands above the table.
“We have also requested for the Elders of the Blackhand Mountains to join us, and I have received word that the leaders of the Honest army, as well as Lovi Piathos, will also be arriving.” His gaze flickered to Draven, and Draven watched his jaw tighten just slightly as he shifted in his seat. “This meeting… It will be a celebration of our uniting lands. Every race of Haerland in one room. This is what we have planned for.”
For much of the meeting, Draven sat there in a haze, his mind unable to concentrate on anything. He tapped his middle finger on the table the entire time, itching to get away from the fake laughs emitting from Rhaif’s lips.
When Rhaif finally stood from his seat and announced they would retire for dinner, Draven started to leave the room without a glance back at the staring Council.
An arm grabbed him as he reached the door, and he nearly ran into it at the strength in which the person held him back.
Lex’s green eyes tore through him.
He paused and straightened in front of her. “Where is she?”
“She’s okay,” Lex promised. “Do not go bursting in as though you are there to save her.”
Draven’s jaw clenched, and he took a deep breath. His hand ran through his hair and he took the crown off his head. “Right,” he finally breathed. “Why was she not here?” he asked.
Lex’s eyes darted to Rhaif, and her weight shifted as she turned back to him. “That is not my place to say.”
“Hilexi…”
“Using my full name will get you no further to the truth of it,” she assured him. “Evacuate the urgency from your core. She needs her equal. Not her savior.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
AYDRA WATCHED THE sun go down from beneath the poisoned waters of the tub. For a long while, she wondered what lie Rhaif had made up about her not being there. She wondered what Lex had told Draven, and whether he’d cared that she wasn’t there.
It had been Dorian who had helped her raven bring the water up to her tub after the fight that morning. The look on his face made Aydra’s heart weep every time she met his eyes.
“You shouldn’t see me like this,” she told him. “I am fine. Go to the meeting.”
“You shouldn’t be like this,” he argued. “I don’t understand—”
“No, you don’t,” Aydra insisted. She met his stark blue eyes, and she reached out for his hand. “Promise me you’ll always support your sister. No matter if she ever does anything stupid or anything the Council may deem ‘out of turn’. Promise me you’ll always stand at her side.”
He wrapped his hand around hers and reached out to wipe the burn on her cheek with his thumb. “I promise.”
She made Dorian leave her soon after, and she surrendered her body to the pin-needle healing of her mother’s waters.
It was hours after that she found herself staring out of the window at the shining moons, her black silk robe wrapped around her healing body. Her core felt emptier than it had in a long time. As though a part of her had been ripped from her insides.
The door opened and closed just as she wiped the tears from her face. Aydra barely turned from the window, expecting it to be Lex coming back with news from the meeting.
“I didn’t think you’d be here so soon,” she said as she stared out at the ocean. “What happened? Did my brother not go on and on about the sheep this time?”
“Oh, he did,” said the voice not of Lex’s. “Wouldn’t shut up about the quality of the wool not being great enough for the coming winter.”
Her heart skipped at the sound of his voice. She turned, finding Draven holding one of the trinkets on the table by the door, turning it over in his hand with squinted eyes. Her chest began to heave, and she felt an ache for him that made a smile rise on her lips.
“It’s not like you people really need heavy wool around here,” he continued absentmindedly. “Your winters are no more horrid than—” he did a double-take at her, and she realized she was smiling.
“What?” he asked.
A jagged breath left her and she shook her head. “Nothing, it’s just…” she swallowed hard and felt her breath skip, her eyes glisten. “You’re standing there talking about wool as though… “ she bit her lips together, and his brows narrowed just slightly. “As though the last we saw each other, I wasn’t… we weren’t…”
“Fighting?” he finished for her. His weight shifted and he sat the trinket back down. “Aydra, if you think you can scare me away by sharing with me the darkest parts of your core, then you’re going to have to do a lot better than being fearful of a boring life.”
“Like what?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and gave her a full once over. “Like telling me you feel nothing between us… or perhaps that you rape children for fun in the streets, that might do it.”
She allowed the ludacris smile to rise to her face and she shook her head. “You’re ridiculous.”
The grin that made her knees weak spread over his features, and he started to step towards her. “So you do feel something.”
A warmth filled her at the sight of his beautiful face, and she reminded herself to hold it together as he reached her. His hand pushed a hair back behind her ear, and she felt his smile against her lips before he kissed her. The shiver ran down her spine with the heat of his embrace. She gripped his shirt in her hands to steady herself.
He
