Page 170 of Prize for the King
Magnar hisses, pulling me closer when I try to sit up.
“No, I’m saying it wrong. Of course, I need you. I love you. You’re my wife. It’s just that I don’t need you for practical reasons. In the beginning, I let you believe you were a practical choice. That I had to marry a princess from the Eleven to get my seat.
“But at that point, I was resigned to never finding a living princess. I understood perfectly well that kings and queens of the Eleven would rather slaughter their daughters than give one to me. I was going to conquer them all. Then we came to Farneer, and you were alive. Your father’s prize, too precious to kill.Myprize.”
“So why did you marry me?” I ask, shaking my head in confusion. The touch of Magnar’s hands on my back and Khay’s fingers sifting through my hair alleviate my fear.
“Partly because marrying a human princess had been my goal for so long. When I understood you were a princess and so beautiful, I thought, why not? Why not let it be easy? Why not make my father proud in the afterworld? Why not rest, at last? I made you marry me for very selfish reasons. I was cruel. I should have given you a choice, but I wanted you so much, I didn’t, because you’d never have chosenme.”
“So you didn’t marry me for a seat at the Table of Kings?”
Magnar sighs, and Khay chuckles, though it’s stilted and devoid of humor.
“Yes and no. I knew having a seat would make my goal easier toachieve. I chose the easy way. That’s why I’m ashamed. But I was… I am… Just sogoddamntired.”
“So whatisyour goal?” I ask, completely confused.
“I am going to demand the other kings return all Agnidari women to us,” Magnar says, his face tense, his eyes turned away. “It’s a coward’s way out. They should be slaughtered, their women raped. It’s the only way to avenge my people’s suffering. Khay’s suffering.”
I gasp softly, that day of the conquest blazing through my memory.
“You said we took your sisters,” I whisper. “Why… You never talked about it again.”
Khay laughs sharply. “You never asked. It doesn’t matter. I don’t fucking mind and I don’t think it’s cowardly. Whatever brings them home the fastest is the best way. But Magnar is honorable to a fault. After they were captured, he vowed to me he would take them back and punish those who hurt them. His father had just died, and we received news of my sisters being taken a day after Magnar’s coronation.”
I gasp from shock. “Oh gods, that is terrible! You… It’s been ten years, and you haven’t found them? Not in Zanvar, Serilla, even Farneer?”
Khay shakes his head. “They must have been taken to one of the kingdoms farther north. Magnar promised me he’d avenge them. I let him out of his vow, because I love you, my lady, and you don’t want to see other women raped. He still wallows in his guilt.”
“Of course I don’t want to see women raped, they aren’t responsible for their husbands’ crimes!” I exclaim. “And often those same women suffer because their husbands are cruel beasts. It’s unjust.”
“And what happened to my sisters was just?” Khay asks, a world of suffering in his cold eyes.
“Of course not. But punish those who actually hurt them. I don’toppose that at all. I’ll hold your sword for you and wipe blood from your brow after you’re done.”
Khay shakes his head, the coldness seeping out of his expression until only sorrow is left. “I don’t even care for vengeance anymore. I just want them to come home, or to know that they are dead if that’s the case. Ten years, Caliane. They’ve been gone ten years. Arhissa, Tasha, and Viriel. My sisters.”
Oh gods, Khay has suffered all this time, and I love him, and I never knew. I feel angry and hurt that he would hide such a huge thing from me.
“But why didn’t you say anything?” I explode. “Because I didn’t ask? Khay, I barely remember the details of that day. I lost my father and had to marry a man I believed to be the living devil!”
He looks away, his face hardening before his dark gaze finally settles on me.
“Because I’m ashamed, too. You were right, okay? Your maids didn’t hurt my sisters! It just… I was so angry all those years, and I fuckingenjoyedseeing human women crying. Just like my sisters must have cried. And then I fell in love with a woman who showed me how stupid it was to think that.”
He gets up and paces, kicking pillows out of the way, his hands combing through his hair in anguish.
“I have this nightmare sometimes, and only one thing happens—you say ‘None of those women hurt your sisters.’ And I don’t get it at first, and then I do, and I’m horrified. And sometimes I dream that someone wants to get revenge on me or Magnar, and they take it out onyou, and it’s horrible, Caliane. We did that.I did that.”
Magnar pats my back, and I get up, going to Khay. His body heaves with breaths that verge on sobs, and I wrap my arms around him without a word. What is there to say? They did wrong, they learned, and they stopped. Many people don’t ever stop the bad things theydo.
“I don’t deserve you,” Khay whispers hoarsely, his arms loose at his sides.
“Oh, Khay, what nonsense. Hug me back. I love you.”
He takes a shaky breath, and wraps his arms around me. His embrace is tighter than comfortable, and I surrender to it, letting him have whatever he needs to soothe his pain.
When he pulls away, he’s calmer, though his eyes are swollen purple. Magnar gets up and stretches, then grabs a hairbrush to get tangles out of his hair after the night.
