Page 100 of The Kingdom's Reckoning
She cocked her head to the side. "Did you know you could do that?" she asked, her face contorted as if she believed it was possible for him to keep such a secret from her.
"No. I had no idea. At times, I have felt odd in my own skin, but I never imagined…" Graeson shivered as he thought of the instances when he would be in cramped places and his panic would surge. Now though? Now, the voice inside his head was silent, as if his body was finally at peace with itself.
Kalisandre dragged her gaze across him as if she was searching for scales or talons, as if the dragon would appear at any moment. "Did it hurt?"
Graeson chuffed a laugh. "Like nothing else."
He hesitated to say more. He wasn’t sure how to describe what the transformation felt like, nor did he believe it would help either of them. His silence gave him away, though.
"What is it?"
"It’s—" He swallowed the rest of the sentence as Barinthian’s words echoed in his mind.
Lean on the one you call yours. You may feel like a monster, but running from her will only make it worse. Let her be your humanity.
"I think we should sit down," he said.
When she nodded, Graeson wrapped an arm around her waist and guided her over to a fallen tree. He helped her sit down, careful of her injury. Then he sat beside her. A gentle breeze skated across them, though it did little to rid his skin ofthe beading sweat. He wiped his palm on his trousers, his leg bouncing beneath it.
Her hand fell on his, and she squeezed it. The light pressure momentarily calmed the rapid beating of his heart. The nervous tremor in his hands subsided slightly.
"Whatever it is, you can tell me, Graeson," she whispered. "I’m not going anywhere."
He pulled his gaze away from their hands to look up at her.
Maybe he was wrong before. Maybe she hadn’t been afraidofhim, butforhim.
Exhaling a slow breath, Graeson let his shoulders drop, the tension within them easing just a fraction. Then he told her everything: what Myra had told him after the council meeting, what his mother had said about freeing himself, his father showing up and taking Lysanthia. He confessed it all, not bothering to hold back, not fearing that she would think differently of him. Because he finally understood that if he didn’t lean on her, if he didn’t tell her the truth, then it would only tear him apart.
Chapter 40
MYRA
"Maybe I should swear off women,"Rian announced as he tossed the bread the innkeeper had given them away.
While Myra didn’t believe the bread was poisonous, she did not voice her dissent.
Rian had gone on monotonously about how he was an excellent judge of character. Myra, however, quickly saw through his facade.
She had tried to convince him that he couldn’t have known. Myra was honestly as shocked as he was that the innkeeper had betrayed them. The woman had most likely been forced to confess the truth to the assailants. When the trio had first arrived at the inn, Myra hadn’t sensed any malicious intent, only curiosity and attraction from the woman. Although when they were leaving the inn, Myra recalled a strangeness coating the space. The woman had been more jittery, her aura coated with paranoia as she shifted on her feet behind the bar—something Laurince had realized only after Myra was gone.
"She told us eventually," Laurince said, looking over his shoulder as they rode. "We made it in time. That’s what matters."
Rian glanced at Myra, remorse twisting his features. "I should have realized sooner. I shouldn’t have been so careless."
"I was careless, too," Myra admitted, offering him a small smile. Maybe if she hadn’t been distracted by the images of Laurince’s legs entangled with hers, she would have noticed something was off with the woman sooner. "You cannot take all the blame."
"It comes with the title, does it not?"
Myra sighed. To some extent, if their arrangement had been different, Rian and Kallie would have gotten along well as a ruling couple. They both tried to take on too much.
As thoughts of Kallie came up, Myra looked away from Rian. Had she met with King Domitius yet? Was she safe? Was she?—
"Mys?"
"Hmm?" Myra snapped her attention back to Rian and found him staring at her, concerned. Both he and Laurince kept glancing at her with that look. They were constantly checking in on her, afraid that something else had happened. That they hadn’t gotten there in time.
But they had. Myra kept reminding herself that.
