Page 92 of The Half King
“I love to see you happy,” he whispered. He stretched out beside her and gathered her in his arms. “Am I to assume your lessons went well?”
“Very well,” she said, resting her cheek on his chest and snuggling closer to fill the empty spaces between them. “I only wish I could show you. I learned so much from Nero. And the whole time I was practicing, I never glowed. He said the fire in my blood flashed when it came to life, and now it shouldn’t happen anymore.”
“That’s a relief.” Kian kissed the top of her head. There was love in his touch, but there was something more as well—an emotion she couldn’t read. His arms tightened harder around her as though he was afraid she might slip through them. “I missed you last night.”
“I missed you, too.”
“But our time apart gave me a chance to think.” His heartbeat thumped below her cheek. “I came to a decision, and I don’t know how you’re going to feel about it.”
She propped her chin on his chest, delivering a questioning look.
“I told you that I don’t want your obedience,” he went on. “But that’s not entirely true. There’s one command I have to give you.”
She held her breath. She didn’t like the sound of that.
“I order you,” he said in a firm voice, “to preserve your life by any means necessary. You won’t sacrifice yourself to save me.”
Reeling, she tried to process the gravity of what he’d said—what it might mean for breaking the curse. His command could restrict her in any number of ways, none of which she could predict. She didn’t know the goddess’s plan. What if Shiera meant to call her home? What if that was the price required to free Kian and Daerick and Nina’s baby? Or the price for keeping the Order off of the throne?
“Kian, you can’t,” she told him, sitting up. “Too many people are suffering. I have to be able to do whatever it takes to break the curse. I don’t know what that is, but if the goddess wants my life—”
“No,” he cut off. “She won’t have it.”
“So you would punish the world to save one person?”
He sat up and took her hand. “Sacrificing lives is part of my duty as king. More people have died in battle throughout the ages than the number who are alive today. But in war, there’s always a limit to how much you can lose before you surrender.” He squeezed her hand. “You’re my limit, Cerise. You have an uncommonly pure soul, and I don’t want to live in a world created by any deity who would demand you as a sacrifice. I would rather surrender. I would rather let the world end.”
She shook her head. “It’s not your place to decide that.”
“It is my place,” he corrected. “Your goddess made sure of it when she gave me dominion over her priests…and over her priestess. Shiera put this power in my hands. And I command you to live.”
“Take it back.”
“I won’t.”
“At least change your wording so I have more freedom.”
“I won’t,” he repeated. He fixed her with a gaze that promised he had given this a great deal of thought and wouldn’t be swayed.
Cerise sat there for a while and stared at her lap, her fingers growing limp in his grasp. His decision would haunt them in ways neither of them expected. She sensed it.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured.
She drew away her hand. “No, you’re not.”
“No,” he admitted. “I’m not.”
24
The sunset runes led the caravan northwest that day, but for only half the distance as the day before. When Cerise cast the dice again at twilight, the runes predicted an even shorter distance for the following morning.
“Only five clicks,” she said to the group. She reached out to retrieve the runes, but in the time it took for her to blink, they had vanished. She drew a hopeful breath and looked to Nero. “Does this mean what I think it means?”
Nero nodded, but the flat line of his lips hinted that he didn’t share her excitement. “We should reach the Petros Blade tomorrow—probably by midday, if the trail is solid.”
“Well, that’s good news,” Daerick said. He glanced back and forth between them. “Isn’t it?”
“It is,” Nero told him. “But…”
