Page 31 of Queen of the Wicked
He doesn’t answer. He moves closer instead, close enough that our breath mixes in the air between us.
It occurs to me that in another version of this life, we would have ruined each other on this forest floor. It occurs to me that in this one, we are trying very hard not to.
He studies me for a long time, and I let him. The night grows deeper. At last, he reaches across the wreckage of our truth and puts his hand over mine.
We have done this before—in grief, in rage, in beds we should not have shared. We have never done it like this: still, simple, human.
“I have waited a long time,” he says, “to find love that did not ask me to become a weapon.”
“And?”
“And I would rather lose everything else than lose that.” He swallows. “Even my pride. Even the version of myself that always needs the final word.”
“We’ll make sure you don’t,” I say.
“We?”
“You and me and her. The kind of ‘we’ that survives angry nights and unsent letters.”
“You’re assuming she will come back.”
“She always comes back to you, does she not? And when this is over, you will tell her why you were afraid. Not as a defense. Not as an excuse. As a confession.”
We sit like that for a while.
Two stubborn men holding hands through the dark of night.
“Rowan,” he says without looking at me.
“Yes?”
His lips touch mine for a fleeting second. “For what it’s worth, I would have done the same for you. Maybe not then–not before. But now.”
As he pulls away, I pull him back.
And this time, I don’t let him slip away.
Twenty-Eight
Kaius
Even in the quiet, even in the hush of leaves above and the illusion of stillness, the Blackwood breathes. Its lungs are long-rotted, but patient. It watches from between the trees with eyes made of shadow.
Adelasia shifts beside me in the makeshift bedding we’ve fashioned from padded moss. As I told Rowan, she’s always been restless in sleep, but this is different. Her brow furrows and smooths again, lips moving like she’s arguing with something in her dreams.
Or someone. Most likely Rowan or myself, if I had to guess.
I reach out, touch the curve of her wrist where it rests against her chest. Even in sleep, her magic pulses faintly beneath her skin, a living heartbeat under the surface.
I glance at Rowan. He hasn’t slept in days, and I can see where the lack of…feedingis weighing on him.
He sits with his back against a twisted root, his head tilted back, silver eyes reflecting the fire’s embers. The veins in his throat have darkened, and his jaw’s clenched just tightly enough to betray his exhaustion. He’s hiding it—barely—but I see it now. He’s weak.
But then he glances my way, and that damned smirk curls at the edge of his mouth. It’s not mocking tonight. It’s tired. Hollow. Knowing.
Like he sees straight through me.
And maybe he does.
