The Centaur Queen (The Dark Queens #7)(28)
My brows dipped. “I don’t know. I feel such strange things around him now. I’m far smarter than him. I’m faster, stronger, swifter with a blade. And yet...”
“You are drawn to him as a moth to flame. Mm.” She nodded, sighing deeply. “And yet, my dear, when all is said and done, you love him.”
“I can’t.”
“Why? Because our society says you can’t? Because you’ll be shunned or whispered about? I know who you are, Tymanon, centauress without equal. You have a mind far more brilliant than most of us. I think you know what’s going on, and I think you fight it because you don’t believe you should be feeling this way. But let us be honest for a moment, at least here.” She spread her arms, encompassing the whole of her hut. “Will you do that for me?”
I thought about what she’d asked me. Kezia was wise. I could tell that already. And I knew, without needing to ask, that whatever I said here would remain between the two of us. So I nodded.
“Do you love him?”
“He has engendered great feelings in me, feelings I did not know myself capable of before.”
“But you have not answered my question, my dear. Do you love him?”
I blinked, measuring my words, thinking the matter through. Fate heard all. Anything I said now could be used against me at any time.
But could I truly hide what I felt? I did not think so. Not truly. Even that perfidious Nigel had seen the look of desire blazing on my face.
Kezia said, “If the Fates demanded his head for your answer, could you do it?”
The thought was so abhorrent that I literally growled. When she smiled, I instantly stopped. I hadn’t truly known myself until just now, but the thought of ever harming him, of hurting him in anyway, pained me to my very core. I swallowed hard, feeling the delicious stew settle like a stone in my belly.
“You see, Tymanon, the Fates will use whatever weakness they can perceive against you. So I do not want you to answer that question out loud. But answer it honestly to yourself and then determine what your course will be. You know already there will be three tests. What they might be, none can know. But you are brave and you are intelligent. My guess is your battle will be fought there. I would caution you against giving them anything more.”
My nostrils flared. “So act not and say nothing?”
She shrugged. “That, my dear, is a question only you can answer. Whatever you decide, make certain you can live with your decision.”
“What if he doesn’t... feel the same?”
She raised her brow. “I think you are wise enough to know the answer to that.”
I thought about what she’d said, and what she hadn’t said. If I chose Petra, if I walked out to meet him tonight and told him how I felt, fate could alter.
“He has a sister,” I said slowly. “I know little about her other than she is a captive of the Fates.”
She cocked her head, looking me up and down slowly before saying, “And you fear he might choose her over you?”
I sucked in a sharp breath, because from the moment he’d told me of Myra, it had been a terrible burden buried deep within the confines of my very secret self.
“I do not want to love anything,” I said, trembling as I did, glad that Petra wasn’t here to hear my confession because deep down, I knew the words would wound him.
He and I should never be. It would be a kindness to walk away from him when this was all said and done, to part our separate ways. Our life together would be one of shunned exile, never accepted by his kind or mine. We would be mocked. We would be ridiculed by all. That fate that meant nothing to me, since I preferred my solitude.
But satyrs were nothing like me. They needed the company of peers to thrive. They needed the touch of their nymphs to find pleasure. And the thought of being forced to share Petra’s affections made me want to retch.
“Yes, but it is far too late, my dear, at least for you. True love, once found, can never be buried, forgotten, or shoved aside. The feeling will only grow greater and greater, consuming your mind, twisting you, until all you can do, think, and be is his. It is an emotion that will turn into an obsession, and the only way to stop that is to confront it, face it, challenge it, and accept whatever the outcome may be.”
Once I thought that, should I ever find myself handfasted, I too would want my stallion to find comfort in the arms of others more willing, because my heart and mind could never fully be his. I was a creature of science, of books. Those were my true passions.
But I wanted to kiss Petra again. I wanted to touch him, to hold him, to feel him as a woman felt a man. I’d never wanted to do that with another before.
Why had he kissed me?
Had he done it to force me to confront myself? Or had it been a passing fancy, a momentary lapse in judgment? He’d laughed it off at the end, running as far and fast away from me as he possibly could. It’d stung at first, but now I wondered if he’d mistaken my shocked reaction as disinterest and had burned with shame. Had he used laughter to hide his humiliation?
It made me ache at the thought.
“Dark magic fell over Kingdom. The rumors travel the lands.” Kezia’s voice deepened. “It has not affected this corner of the world as badly as the rest, but the changes are here too. I remember some of what was lost, lovers and children, now memories known only to a very few.” Her lips pulled down.