The Promised Queen (Forgotten Empires #3)- Jeffe Kennedy Page 0,58

sucking everything good into it, like the whirlpool at Cradysica. And this trial ahead—I didn’t know what kind of thing I’d be when I emerged. I’d drunk blood to live, and there might be no coming back from that. I still was not able to stomach any food—something I’d managed to hide from Con, though Ibolya suspected.

If I could only live on human blood now … Well, it didn’t bear thinking of. Except that I refused to feed off Con for the rest of my life.

For a while the night before, for those few glorious hours with Con, I’d been able to forget all that. But with the morning light and Ibolya’s call for me to arise and tend my realm, that had faded into perspective. I could give Con sex, but that wouldn’t be enough to replace Oriel. He’d seen right through me to the truth: I couldn’t let myself love him—if I was even capable of that generous emotion—and then be broken when he inevitably had to leave. Or worse, if I had to watch his love turn brittle and sour while he fought the collar of being tied to me, in a land far from the one he’d been born to.

Call me weak. I hated being weak, but I had to confront the harsh reality of that truth. I wasn’t strong at all. Just a fragile orchid, I’d be a parasite on the strength of something that truly lived, blooming while the core of Con’s strength rotted from the inside.

The Pilgrims’ Path angled steeply now, winding the last loops to the top of the ridge behind the palace. Truly, it wasn’t that far as Merle would fly it. Most of the effort went into the climb, which was another reason—besides the meditative aspects—to take the journey slowly.

My mind and heart were far too unruly for meditation. Following my impulse the night before, visiting the Night Court, and then letting Con take over to act out my fantasies … That might not have been a good idea. I’d thought to excise the wizards—and that had worked—but in doing so I’d also lost a last and vital barrier between Con and myself.

He’d seen me at my most vulnerable—dead, broken, dying, starving until he fed me with his own body. But nothing had exposed me on every level as willingly submitting to his bonds and desires had. The night before had been revelatory, transformative, exquisitely cathartic beyond my imaginings, and …

And what in Ejarat had I been thinking? I should have been building walls between us, not tearing down the final ones.

I was thinking in circles. At least Con had fallen silent, dropping the topic of our heartbreaking, doomed future, as I’d demanded. Or he was brooding.

I should maybe apologize. Except—would that blur the clarity of the boundary I’d drawn between us? I glanced at him, to gauge his current mood. Con was staring fixedly ahead, a look of puzzlement on his face.

I followed his gaze and saw the temple in view, framed in a break in the tree-lined path.

“Is that it?” Con asked, noticing my attention.

He had been deliberately staying quiet then. Letting me brood. Ejarat take him and his considerate tending of me. Maybe I should pick a fight with him. I knew how to handle a pissed-off Con. And if he made me mad enough, perhaps I’d stop feeling this terrible tenderness toward him, this desperate yearning for more, and more, and more.

“Lia?” He frowned a little. “Are you feeling all right?”

“I’m fine,” I bit out, far more harshly than necessary. “And yes, that’s the temple. Not what you were expecting?”

He narrowed his eyes, studying me, assessing my change of mood, then glanced at the temple again. “Well, yeah. Everything on Calanthe is so pretty. I guess I expected the temple to be all spun-sugar spires and altars carved of single, giant gemstones. Not … What is that? It looks like a cave. A big fucking damp, dark cave.”

I tried not to laugh, I really did. And not only because I knew he was trying to lift my dour mood. So I rolled my eyes at him and assumed my most sanctimonious manner. “You dare mock the sacred womb of Calanthe?”

“The … womb?” The look of faint horror on his face wasn’t manufactured this time. “Please tell me that’s figurative and not literal.”

“Well, the cave is obviously formed of rock.” I gestured at it, twig fingers clicking, before I remembered and tucked that hand in the pocket