his.
“Maeva,” he murmured, his voice low when I reached his table. “Do not—”
My goblet thudded down onto his table. The sound was final and certain. I swore I heard a snicker behind me, a female’s laugh, and saw Kiran’s cutting gaze silence it quickly. Then that furious gaze was on me and I felt a ringing begin in my ears.
Dread was curling in my belly, hot and sickening, the longer I stood there. Kiran didn’t say a word, his jaw turned resolutely away. His hand didn’t move towards my goblet. Suddenly, I felt my skin beginning to warm. My cheeks felt like they were on fire.
“Go, Maeva,” Kiran said, his voice firm but quiet, when he realized I wasn’t moving.
“Kiran—”
“Go.”
The word was sharp, spoken in a tone I’d never heard from him before.
But he was a Vorakkar now and he wouldn’t be disobeyed.
I scurried down from the dais, sickening mortification rushing over my head like a wave pulling me under in Drukkar’s Sea. My chest ached. I bumped into someone and heard a laugh follow. I didn’t dare meet anyone’s eyes and when I felt a familiar hand clasp my own, I held onto it. My mother led me back to our table, though she was silent. When I dared to look up at her, her golden skin was flushed but she held her chin high.
With dread, I realized I’d embarrassed her. When I met my father’s gaze, I saw his jaw was tight and tense. Laru was looking down in her lap. I’d embarrassed us all. My family.
The brew from Laru’s goblet—since mine still sat untouched on Kiran’s table—tasted like the bitterness of the pain medicine I’d learned to make from the mokkira, when before it had tasted sweet and thick.
I didn’t know how long I sat there, in a daze, my chest aching. But then I felt him, his presence close.
“I need to speak with you,” Kiran rasped, taking my arm and guiding me from my seat. “Now.”
Like a fool, hope rose in my breast. Even my mother looked surprised, though wary, as Kiran led me from the feast.
I knew where we were going.
Kiran’s hand was strong in my own. Calloused in places I didn’t remember. I felt a deep scar across the back of it, which I also didn’t remember. I had studied those hands dappled in sunlight, clasped around the hilt of his sword, around the reins of his pyroki, Roon, so many times. I would’ve remembered the scars.
He led me out through the secret gate close to the water well. The night was clear, the moon hanging low and sparkling along the sea. I heard the crashing of waves and I took a wonderful breath of salt air as Kiran led me down the familiar path to the ledge tucked against the cliff, where we’d often spent long afternoons.
His hand left mine and I pressed my back into the cliff wall, the wind from the sea blowing my dress around my ankles, threading through my hair. A seffi came loose with the wind, floating in the air briefly before Kiran snatched it, inspecting it carefully, silently. Then he let it blow away, down into the sea.
He’d always called me seffi. His little bloom.
His jaw was tight as he regarded me.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Maeva.”
I swallowed. “Why not?”
Kiran looked away from me, turning his gaze out to the sea. His eyes were always on the horizon line.
“What do you look for?” I asked quietly when he didn’t answer me.
“What?” he bit out, turning back to me.
“What is it that you look for? When you look out there?” I asked again, gesturing to the watery expanse before us.
His eyes were surprised but his facial expression never changed. I wondered when he’d learned to do that. If it was part of his training in Dothik. I was beginning to realize that I hated whatever he’d had to learn in Dothik because it had chipped away at the warm, kind Dakkari boy I’d come to love.
“I don’t know,” he answered. Then he said, “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
He was massive, standing close to me along the ledge. Strong, broad shoulders. Thick thighs. His tail twitched along the rocks, gleaming with spray from the sea. Thick, golden bands were around his wrists, new and solid, reflecting the light of the moon. His Vorakkar cuffs.
He was the Vorakkar of Rath Okkili now.
But he’d always be Kiran to me. My Kiran.
“Why did you do it?” he rasped.
The goblet.
“Did it displease you?” I