what I meant.” He slipped out of his saddle and strode toward me. “I want you to be happy. We’ll find a way to make that happen. I promise.”
Frowning, I studied the slight tremor to his hands. I’d told him about the Gyss’s magic in passing—he knew of the risks and potential payoff. And yet…something about his unrelenting green gaze told me this was much deeper than a beast. A promise that, if this failed, he’d keep trying to fulfill.
Feeling swelled in my chest just as unease settled in my gut. I swore I saw a glimmer of darkness beneath his eyes. I had to rein myself in. Leena was already ill. I wouldn’t be able to handle it if he was, too. “What are you saying?”
He removed his glasses and stared at me without filter. Emotion flared behind his eyes, honest and, for once, unguarded. Love, pure and real. Pain, as deep and as dark as mine, and at once, I knew. I knew why he hated Leena—not her, but the thought of her. How long had he been silently suffering? Decades? Since the moment I set foot in Cruor?
I’d never once acknowledged his love. How cruel I was, even if it was better that I’d never said a word. Even if it had saved his life.
A fist wrung my heart. I cared for Kost in ways I was too scared to admit. I couldn’t condemn him to death. Again. And still, through it all, he’d been there. A silent partner. A constant shoulder that I couldn’t lean on, but offered just the same. Words faded, and I stood completely still.
I didn’t just need this curse gone for Leena. I needed it gone for him. For Ozias and Calem. For me.
“Kost, I—”
“We’ll talk later.” He replaced his glasses and turned toward his mount. “You better catch up with Leena.”
“Yeah.” It was all I could muster, and it was impossibly lacking. A branch cracked in the distance, and I spurred into motion, tracking the imprints of Leena’s boots in the grass. Only when I was hidden within the safety of the forest did I dare expel my breath.
Kost. Leena. I was more monster than man, and I didn’t deserve either of them.
Moving quickly, I caught up to Leena and followed without uttering a word. She stiffened at my presence, but didn’t turn to check. She didn’t have to. There was an electric current between us, and it was impossible not to be aware of her.
I braved disturbing that connection first. “How do you know about Nepheste’s Ruins?”
She halted to take a breath before she continued forward. “Everyone born on this continent knows about the ruins.”
“About them, yes, but not where to find them.”
“Beasts talk. No one knows our world like Charmers do.” Quickening her stride, she leaped over a fallen tree covered in moss and miniscule magenta flowers. The forest watched us. Beady eyes gleamed from behind ferns and tree stumps, and soft calls questioned our approach. The deeper we got, the more insistent the sounds became. “Why do you ask?”
There it was. Affection. A desire to further understand, to learn more. It was small and repressed by pain, as if she was trying to stifle her own emotions, but the slight pique in her tone gave her away. I shouldn’t have been happy, but I was. I’d shut down entirely after she’d given herself to me. Thrust her out and left her alone to sift through the weight of my curse. It was wrong, and yet somehow it was the exact right thing to do. The only way I could have kept her alive. The contradiction burned me up inside.
Quieting my heart, I moved closer to her. “Curiosity. I suppose aside from Charmers, the only other beings aware of the ruins’ location are the royal family.” It was a rite of passage for the future king or queen to visit the sacred grounds before accepting the crown. The first mages of Wilheim were buried there. Returned to the earth in ruins forged by the gods. There, an ascending prince or princess received the world’s blessing.
“I suppose,” Leena said. Another unspoken question. This one, I couldn’t answer. My past was dangerous and buried with my former life—resurrecting it would invite war. Until I knew for certain the outcome of us, I couldn’t utter a word.
Without warning, Leena came to an abrupt stop. She rested her hand against the ivory bark of a lumina tree. Lilac leaves drooped low to the