Page 110 of Reign of Light
“I was so scared,” I admit to the darkness, and my voice quivers with the coming onslaught of tears.
“I was too,” he grumbles, his warm fingers wrapping around mine. “But Dane is finally gone, and you are safe, with me. No one who wants to harm you will be allowed to. They will be removed.”
“What will happen now?” I whisper. “There’s no Guardian. He and my father killed each other, and now there is no one to take his place.”
“I don’t know. But maybe it is better this way. The myth will become just that, a myth. No one will have to endure the pain of being unworthy and having their hope ripped away.”
He’s right. Without a new Guardian, no one will get to the mountain only to leave empty-handed. But without a new Guardian, all that hope will also be lost.
I’m not sure which is better.
Weston’s thumb strokes the back of my hand, sending tingles up my arm as we sit in comfortable silence, but the lack of conversation only makes my mind reel. When I can’t take it any longer, the worries slip from my lips.
“How am I going to be queen?”
The question settles between us, but before he can answer, my doubts and worries take over. “Getting to this point was what I always wanted. What IthoughtI always wanted. I’d finally be in control of my life. I wouldn’t just be subjected to someone else’s choices. I’d get to make my own. I got a taste of what life could be like, and I couldn’t let it go. When I wasn’t worthy, I wanted to stay on Dawnlin, just so I didn’t have to give up that freedom. But now that it’s here, I don’t know if I can.”
My throat screams when I fall silent, but I don’t care. I had to get all of it out. His thumb halts, and I watch his shadowed face in the darkness, waiting for his response.
“Lennox, there is no question of going to be. You aren’t going to be anything. Youare. It is who you always have been, and who you always would become. It’s only a title, nothing more. You are still Lennox Holt, whether ‘queen’ comes before your name, or not.”
Lifting my hand, his lips press firmly onto my knuckles. “And you will always be my queen, even before you were officially.”
Tears prick at my eyes, and I’m thankful for the darkness so he can’t see them. I’ve cried so much recently, and I don’t want him to see the mess I have become in the last few days. I want him to see the strong, fierce Lennox.
“Thank you for not letting me do this alone.”
“I will never let you do anything else alone. Until the breath stills in my lungs, remember?” His voice is strong and insistent in the dark, and I know the exact look I would see in his eyes if I could.
“I remember.”
“Good.” He sets my hand on the mattress and rises before leaning over and brushing his lips over mine with another barely there touch. “Go back to sleep, my queen.”
He steps away from the bed and crosses the room back toward the hearth, and the panicked feeling from before he returned comes back in full force.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m not leaving, sweetheart.”
“Then where are you going? You said there isn’t another threat, so you need to sleep too.”
“I will.” He lowers himself onto the chaise lounge and crosses his ankles in front of him. The glow from the fire outlines his body as he sinks back into the cushions and faces the door.
I stare at him across the room, and it’s as if the weight of the entire day and the reality of what the future could be crush me where I lie. Weston has never intentionally harmed me. Instead he has done everything possible to ensure my well being and keep me safe, even back when I thought it was all an act.
But this hurts.
Watching him sleep across the room, after losing so many people I care about, feels like rejection. It feels like losing him too. Could my title or finally being back in Blackwood really change the way things are between us so drastically from what they were mere days ago?
My chest feels hollow as tears stream down my cheeks, but I hold my breath, trying to keep him from hearing my cries. I can’t turn away. Between the pillows propped beneath me and the pain tonic that hasn’t fully taken effect yet, all I can do is close my eyes and try not to let my thoughts spiral. The burning in my lungs from trying to hide the sound makes it impossible to do it any longer, and the swollen sniffling catches his attention. His boots pound across the room, and he’s at my side again in barely a moment.
“Hey, I’m here. What’s wrong? Where does it hurt?” He wipes thetears from my cheeks, though his touch is gentle, as if he’s trying not to jostle me.
“What happened? Did I…did I do something wrong?” I croak. My voice is still hoarse, but the tonic from the healers has finally started working, and the pain has all but disappeared.
“What do you mean?” he grumbles.
“I’ve slept next to you for months,” I murmur, “and now that we’re back in the castle, it’s just over?”
