Page 72 of The Kingdom's Reckoning
She scooted closer. "Here," she said, tossing the blanket that was wrapped around her over his farthest shoulder.
He caught the blanket and started unwrapping it. "You really don’t need to do that. You should?—"
"Stop telling me what I should and shouldn’t do, Gray," she interrupted.
He frowned, regret coating his countenance immediately.
A small smile appeared on her face, and she nudged him with her shoulder. "Just take the blanket."
"If you insist." He slipped the blanket back over his shoulders.
When she felt the blanket tug, she scooted closer. Their thighs and shoulders were pressed against each other. Even through her clothes, she could feel how cold he was. She didn’t understand how he wasn’t shivering.
"Thank you," he said.
Kallie simply nodded.
Although she should have been putting space between Graeson and herself, in case the plan didn’t go accordingly when she met with Domitius, she found it harder and harder to do. She enjoyed Graeson’s closeness. His proximity settled something inside her. Maybe it was the result of the soul bond, yet that felt too simple—even though being soul bonds was anything but simple.
She wondered how their lives would have been different if Domitius had never taken her. It was something she had thought about often since she had learned the truth about her past. Would Esmeray have told her that Lysanthia had a vision of them being soul bonds when she was a child? Or would her mother have let Kallie find out on her own? Would she have followed Graeson around like a lost puppy as a child? Would she have been one of those teenagers who tried to shake off her feelings and appear aloof? Or would they have already been happily married?
That life seemed so simple, so uncomplicated. Kallie couldn’t imagine it. Although she certainly tried as she dozed off.
At some point, her head fell against Graeson’s shoulder. Minutes or hours later, her eyes fluttered open. She tried to sit upright and move away, but her head was too heavy. The fog of sleep beckoned her to return, to fall back into its warm embrace.
"Go lay down," Graeson whispered as though he could feel her trying to fight the exhaustion.
Kallie mumbled a disagreement yet found herself moving. But for once, she wasn’t moving away from him. She drifted onto his lap, propping her arm beneath her head and resting it on his thigh.
Instead of persuading her to move, though, he pulled the blanket tightly around her.
Kallie turned flat on her back and nestled against him. He draped his arm over her, its weight comforting. When she opened her eyes, Graeson was looking off into the woods again, the same twisted expression drawing his brows together. She wanted to console him and say it would be fine, but she couldn’t find it in her heart to promise something she couldn’t. She was no seer. Instead, she said the one true thing she could.
"For what it’s worth, I’m glad you found us."
Graeson looked down at her with wide eyes, either surprised that she was still awake or that she had said those words at all. But it was true; Kallie was glad. She found comfort in knowing he was with her. Not because she needed his protection, but because he reminded her who she was, who she could be.
"I will always find you, Kalisandre." He gave her a small smile, but sadness swirled across the sea of silver. "You should know that by now."
He turned away, focusing his attention once more on the surrounding forest.
In that moment, Kallie wanted to take back what she had said to him the night she had left. She wanted to wipe the despair from his gaze. Yet she remained silent.
She took a slow breath and stared at the stars peeking through the leaves. Since they had left Tetria, Kallie often wondered about Rian’s theory that ancient dragons created the stars by burning holes into the blanket separating the mortaland immortal realms. She wondered whether the story had any merit or if it was just another myth told to lull children to sleep. In the grand scheme of things, she supposed it didn’t matter. The dragons were extinct, and the gods barely showed themselves these days. Still, Kallie couldn’t help but wonder if it could work in reverse. If the legendary beasts could create holes to other worlds—if other worlds even existed.
Her eyes danced across the constellations, and she spotted Sabina’s constellation easily. Was there war and political strife in the immortal world?
Kallie wanted to believe that the gods were better than humans. After all, that’s what the stories alluded to—that the gods were superior, higher beings who were stronger and wiser than mortals. But if that was the case, then why did they come to the mortal world in the first place? Were they so bored with their immortality that they needed to mess with the affairs of humans?
Graeson swiped his thumb across the blanket, calling her attention to him once more. She curled into him and closed her eyes, her thoughts spinning.
It would have been so much easier, Kallie thought, if the gods hadn’t come here at all. If they hadn’t, the powers Kallie and the others possessed would never have existed. Then maybe Domitius wouldn’t have taken her from her home and started a war.
Then again, she supposed Graeson wouldn’t have existed either, and she wasn’t so sure she wanted to live in a world without him.
Chapter 30
MYRA
