Page 66 of The Half King
“Kian, it’s—”
“I waited too long.” Still pressed to the wall, he raked a trembling hand through his hair. He seemed to be talking to himself now. “I should’ve taken you home when I had the chance. I knew it in my gut, but I didn’t listen because I wanted the Petros Blade.”
She moved toward him cautiously. “It’s all right. I followed you here from my tent. I was dreaming. You couldn’t see me, but I could see you. I watched you kiss my forehead. Do you remember doing that?”
Something within him seemed to break. He closed the distance between them and took her face roughly in his hands, tilting their foreheads together until the only thing that separated their mouths was a mingled breath.
Her insides sprouted wings and took flight. Her head was dizzy with the scent of him. She lifted a hand to touch him, hesitating once, twice, before she rested her fingertips on his chest and skimmed the soft, dark curls there. Her breathing shuddered. So did his. Swallowing hard, she smoothed her hands over his shoulders and clasped them behind his neck. With one small step, she leaned into him until every part of her body was flush with his.
The closeness was too much and not nearly enough.
She raised her face and parted her lips without meaning to. She wanted him to kiss her more than she wanted her heart to beat, but then she remembered why she couldn’t.
A worshipper of pure faith.
To earn the sunset runes, she had to prove herself worthy. She couldn’t take the chance of damning Kian to this hell forever. She turned her face aside, peering at the stone walls because she couldn’t look him in the eyes. The moment sobered her enough to remind her of another reason not to kiss him: he’d been avoiding her.
“I don’t understand you,” she murmured. “Your spirit is still drawn to me, but you’ve been colder than ever. You haven’t said a kind word to me in days. It’s not fair to treat me like that—like you don’t even care for me anymore.”
He moved one hand to the curve of her neck while gripping her lower back and crushing their bodies together. “I do care,” he whispered in a pained voice. “I want you, Cerise, more than I’ve let myself want anything in a long time. Then I imagined spending eternity here, missing you, tortured by the memory of you. I thought it would be worse to have you and lose you than to never have you at all. But now look. I’ve lost you, and it hurts so badly I can’t stand it.”
She gazed up at him and found his eyelids pinched shut. “You haven’t lost me.”
He whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“Kian, look at me.” She cupped his cheek and told him, “I’m not sorry.”
He exhaled into a sad smile. His hands tightened around her as if he meant to pull her inside him. “My sweet, brave lady of the temple. That’s because you only just arrived.” He stroked her skin with his thumbs and added in a choked whisper, “You don’t know where you are.” A tear slid down his cheek, hot and wet against her fingertips. “You don’t know that you’re dead.”
16
Falling.
Falling endlessly.
Falling through time and space.
Cerise jerked awake so violently that Blue yelped and rolled off the blankets onto the canvas floor. She clapped a hand over her heart, its wild beat confirming that she was, indeed, still alive. Silently, she sent up a prayer of thanks to the goddess while Blue righted himself and licked her chin.
“I’m sorry, boy,” she whispered to him, holding him tight.
She pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly, repeating the process until her heart stopped pounding. As the remnants of the images faded away, she rubbed her eyes and tried to gauge whether it was morning or night. The surrounding darkness had a faint glow to it that could indicate either dawn or dusk. Still lying on her back, she glanced first at the canvas ceiling, then to her left and right, and realized she was in her tent. She wondered how long she had been there. Peering through a thin gap in the canvas flaps, she noticed the sky growing half a shade brighter.
Morning, she decided. That meant the king would arrive soon, assuming his spirit was still drawn to her. After the way he had behaved recently, she had her doubts.
She licked her lips and felt around for her flagon. She must have slept for a moon’s age, because she was thirsty enough to drain a pond. When she found the flagon, she rolled onto her side and took a deep pull. The water tasted incredible, so clean and pure that she didn’t stop gulping until she finished the last drop. Panting, she wiped her mouth while her stomach rumbled. Oatcakes and sand melon sounded incredible at the moment. Mutton jerky and jackrabbit, too. She would eat the tent floor if she could. She gave her chest a few testing pats. The bubble behind her ribs had popped. As for her stomach, the only sensation she felt was the ravenous need to put food inside it.
“I’m starving,” she told Blue, ruffling his head. “I don’t suppose you can hunt me down some food?”
Blue bounced in place and yipped as if agreeing to the challenge. Then he turned around and darted outside.
Cerise was still lying on her pallet and debating whether or not to get up and follow him when a cloud of smoke blew open the tent flaps and washed over her, cool and intoxicating and smelling of clean, male skin. The ball of shadow gathered at her bedside and materialized into flesh. The king appeared, fully naked, seated on her blanket with his head tucked low and his knees drawn to his chest, exactly the same way she had found him in her dream. He didn’t look up at first, until she quietly cleared her throat to get his attention.
At the sound, he snapped his gaze to hers. His eyes were wide, his face slack. He peered at her as though she were a ghost. He even seemed to have stopped breathing.
“Your Highness, are you all right?” she whispered.
He inched his hand forward to touch her arm and gave it a testing squeeze. “You’re alive,” he breathed. “You’re actually alive.”
