Page 117 of Between Fear and Favor

“What did I do to deserve it?” she asked, so frightfully quiet. Gone was her blistering confidence and in its place was this meek and timid version of the girl I knew.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, tugging her closer. She shifted, resting her hand on my chest as she began to cry. The sound nearly killed me. First Faxon, then me, and now her grandmother. She might have included her mother in the list of people who betrayed her, thanks to keeping secrets and not saving Theo, but I didn’t want to put Emmeline with the likes of us—the people who had really betrayed Elora.

“I don’t remember her. She didn’t even know me,” Elora said, sniffling. I pulled her closer, wishing I could make her forget all the bad which had happened to her in such a short time. In less than a year, Elora’s life—and the truths she’d known—had completely fallen apart.

Her family was supposed to love and cherish her. Her family was supposed to protect her. Yet her grandmother had sent me to kill her. Had the woman seen the future and known Emmeline would bring her back? And if so, why hadn’t she told me?

A worse betrayal was the father who raised her. He loved her until she became a tool for his revenge against Emmeline. He’d used her for his own gain, and left her in the hands of the enemy.

He’d left her withme.

As I breathed in her summer scent, I thought perhaps I was the worst traitor of all. I’d loved her because of who she was rather than some familial obligation, and I betrayed her anyway. I killed her, without any assurance that she’d come back from it. And yet, here I sat, wishing to rip the throats out of every person who caused her to feel this way.

Fleetingly, I thought perhaps I should start with the easiest target—myself. With Faxon and my brother gone, the list was far shorter. But as our bodies grew warm where we touched, I knew such a task would be impossible. Because I couldn’t leave her.

I couldn’t leave her even if I tried.

“Perhaps I was evil in a past life,” she murmured, voice thick.

I snorted, unable to stop myself. “If there was any version of you that was evil, the Three Kingdoms would have fallen a long time ago.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, pulling back, but I didn’t allow her to get very far. She scowled at me, beautiful blue eyes gone a bit crossed at our proximity. Her plush lips tilted downward in a frown, and I used my free hand to drag my thumb across her skin. Wiping the tears away, I silenced the racing commands of my conscience, and I willed the frantic beating of my heart to still. She didn’t breathe as I traced my thumb over her lower lip.

“You are already the most obstinate, cunning, and beautiful girl I know, so if?—”

She pushed her lips to mine before I had a chance to finish my sentence. Though I’d planned on kissing her anyway, she beat me to it.

It was everything the kiss within her dreams had been—and more.

She adjusted, lifting her hand to my neck. A tiny whimper escaped her, and the sound gave me goosebumps. Her mouth was so soft and so ardent as she kissed me—like she’d wanted to do it for a very long time and didn’t want to let the chance slip by her. I didn’t allow myself to think of the note she’d left. That she’d wanted to hate me, to blame me, that I had ruined her.

That perhaps she had loved me, instead.

I held her face in my hands as I caressed her lips with my own, and I wished so many things were different. I wished nothing bad had ever passed between us. I wished we could just be who we were right now. I didn’t want to be a king; I didn’t want her to be a princess. I wanted this kiss to mean nothing and everything all at the same time. But there couldn’t ever be anything more than this kiss, and the realization was like a strike to the gut.

No matter all the longing and pining I’d been doing, no matter the amends we’d made and the time we shared together—Elora deserved so much more.

And that was why, despite her protestations, I pulled away.

“Cy,” she whispered my name so sweetly, I nearly kissed her again. Her lips were rosy, and as she touched her fingertips to them, I wanted to do it again. Again and again, I never wanted to stop kissing Elora.

“Min viltasma,” I said, closing my eyes and pressing a kiss to her temple. I held her against me for a long time, letting my breathing return to normal and my thoughts slow down. My racing heart was the last to calm, and finally, I looked down at her.

“Will you help me figure out why?” she asked, and even if I hadn’t just had the best kiss of my life—the only kiss of my life, as far as I was concerned—I didn’t think I could tell her no.

“She’d gone mad.That’s all there is to it,” I asserted, tossing a journal into Elora’s pile. As her grandmother had seen more and more visions, the thoughts she’d scribbled into her notebooks grew more and more nonsensical. And after her daughter died, there was no order to any of them.

“I refuse to believe you slit my throat because a crazy person told you to,” she said, opening the journal I’d just flipped through.

“I mean, obviously there’s more to it than that. She was a seer.Isa seer, I suppose.”

“Won’t be for long, if I have it my way,” Elora muttered, and a boisterous laugh forced its way past my lips.

“Is it still called matricide if it’s a grandparent?” I asked, and she ignored me, but she pushed her tongue against her cheek to stop her smile. “Elora, I don’t know if there is a real point to this. What do you hope to find? That the same woman ranting and raving about her secret garden orchestrated all this on purpose just to what? Punish your mother? Kill you?”

Elora continued to ignore me.

“Do you know just how little I want to read about a crusty old woman’s salacious urges to ‘visit her secret garden,’ Elora?”

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