Page 87 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

I should have asked my oldest friend what drove him to take up his father’s moniker after he absconded from our kingdom—after my father poured years of resources into training him to be a mage—but I was certain I’d scream if he tried to explain anything to me.

Kieran seemed to accept Maksym’s silence and skyward gaze, and his voice softened immeasurably, into one the deepest parts of my soul would recognize and grieve forever. “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

Such a simple statement, uttered with such earnestness, but it was enough to fan my budding ember of volatile shock into a deadly inferno.

I had no control over the bark of bitter laughter that clawed out of me.

“Like hell we do.” With agitated sweeps, I removed Maksym’s hands from my shoulders, even though he seemed to want to bore me into the earth. “I have no words for a fucking deserter like yourself.”

Getting out of the suffocating training arena was the only tangible option my mind could grasp, and I headed straight for the exit.

I paid little heed to how Maksym sputtered, “Wait a second.”

“Come on, Nor,” Kieran sighed.

What a mistake.

I turned back and snapped, “Fuck you, Kieran. Fuck. You. You do not get to call me that. Not after you turned your back on us and threw everything my father did for you in his face. Do you know how many years I grieved for you? The hell I went through? We are not friends.”

Fifteen years, those words had sat trapped in my throat, eating away at me, even when I fought to give them no credence, yet I felt no relief at finally getting them out. No, my chest was going to burst from the pressure of emotion that just wouldn’t yield.

That had to be what drove me to seethe, “And you know what? Fuck you too, Maksym. Some fucking piss-poor excuse for a king you are.”

Both men stared at me with matched looks of shock and disappointment as Eilir started sputtering outraged noises, but I didn’t stick around for any of them to say another word.

19

TWO WOEFULLY SCREWED MEN

Jasper

What a goddess-damned disaster. How lucky for Maksym and Eilir that I’d spent so many fucking hours of my life honing my self-control. I was as close as I’d ever been to strangling them both in our years upon years of tumultuous friendship.

“You both right fucked that up,” I seethed as I picked up the quarterstaff I’d quickly discarded after Enora’s entirely justified assault.

My Enora.

Fuck.

Weeks now, she had been here. Weeks spent seeing the face I thought I’d only ever see again in my dreams. But the gravity of her presence was coming back to hit me all at once.

Eilir simply let out a stressed squeak and vanished into thin air.

Maksym had no right to turn back and blink at me as innocently as he did. “But you had told us both she was⁠—”

“I’ve said a lot of things privately with the explicit expectation they stay as such.” Gesturing wildly between myself and the gate Enora had just bolted through, I scoffed. “This entire situation is one of them.”

Maksym’s mouth opened and shut so quickly, his teeth clacked.

“Eilir’s poorly timed fuck-up aside, we can’t keep secrets,” he said, as if things were so fucking simple. “We can’t. I don’t know how I thought we could get away with it. Could you imagine if she found out weeks or months from now? After the Agōn Ferr? After we wed? It would’ve been a thousand times worse. Catastrophic. Maybe it’s a blessing Eilir slipped up.”

In an effort to keep my fleeting cool, I scrubbed my hands over my face.

Leave it up to Maksym to think someone like Enora—whom he knew nothing about—would see any measure of rationale behind it. He did not know what the fuck he was getting into with her. The young woman I knew had never seen the forest for the trees, and age had done little to improve her outlook, never mind the stress of the circumstances she’d found herself in—I couldn’t blame her, as much as it pained me to admit it.

I deserved every lick of her ire, every bit of rage she wanted to throw at me. All those years ago, I’d known how betrayed she’d feel, even though I never got to say goodbye to confirm it with my own eyes. Never had the chance to make her realize there was something bigger at play—they knew better than to give me the chance. So, she was forced to believe I’d left on a whim, like a ghost in the night, and I spent years grappling with how damaging that would be to her.

But, like most of my goddess-cursed life, I’d been given no choice.