A Vow So Bold and Deadly (Cursebreakers, #3)(60)

My voice trails off.

“A bad man,” Rhen finishes quietly.

I flinch.

Rhen is quiet for the longest moment. “Do you fault your mother for staying with him?”

“Sometimes,” I say, and the word almost causes me physical pain to speak it. “But then I wonder what that means about me.”

He thinks about that for a while, and I know he’s drawing the parallels I’m afraid to voice. When he speaks, I’m surprised that his voice is contemplative, not defensive. “I think of my father often. I’ve told you how he was never faithful to my mother. I think of how he had a secret child that he sent away to be raised in poverty. I think of how I could have had a brother, how I could have been second in line for the throne.” Emotion tightens his voice, but only for a second. “How I never would have been a target for Lilith at all, how the magesmiths would not have been driven out of Emberfall. I sometimes wonder if the man was ever faithful to anyone who should have earned his devotion—or if he only thought of what he wanted in each moment of his life, and simply acted accordingly.” He pauses. “I wonder if he would see me as a failure—and I also wonder if I would want a man like that to see me as a success.”

I’m staring at him. The “secret child sent away to be raised in poverty” was Grey. This is the first time I’ve ever heard Rhen mention a brother with something akin to longing in his voice.

“What I have to remind myself,” he says, “is that my father was dealt a different hand by fate than I was. Just as your mother’s was different from yours.” He pauses. “Do you fault yourself for staying with me, Harper?”

If he asked me the question in a challenging way, my hackles would immediately go up. But maybe that’s why he doesn’t. His voice is level and calm, a true question.

And it’s such a good question, one that hits right at the core of every emotion I’ve felt over the past few months. I was angry at Rhen.

I blame myself.

Somehow, though, the way he’s presented this has pulled the sting out of it. Maybe it’s the realization that we both bring different experiences and different expectations to every challenge we face, those cards that fate deals. He’s the tortured prince, and a million choices layered on a million other choices got him here. I’m the broken girl from the streets of DC, and I got here the same way.

Maybe my father thought he was doing the best he could.

Maybe my mother thought the same—and that’s why she stayed.

Maybe that’s all Rhen is doing.

He doesn’t wait for an answer, but maybe he doesn’t have to. Rhen’s eyes shy from mine, and he picks up his glass. “I was surrounded by guards and weapons in Silvermoon,” he says, “so I looked at all those people like a threat. But until the moment they fell away from you, I don’t think I realized that all they wanted was … was a chance to air their grievances.”

I hold very still. There’s so much weight in his voice, I can feel it pressing down on the room.

He looks at me. “Much like Lia Mara simply wanted to forge a path to peace.” He takes a long swallow from his wineglass. “Much like Grey wanted to spare me the fight to keep my throne.”

“Rhen,” I whisper.

“On that night in the Crooked Boar, there was a moment when you challenged me, when you commented that I was looking for a path to victory, when the curse required me to find a path to love. Do you remember that?”

Yes. I nod.

“I think of that moment often. I wonder if fighting against Lilith for so long made me forget that not every interaction is a challenge that I must win.” He makes a humorless sound. “I wonder if Grey knew that, too. He often realized things about me before I myself ever did.”

That longing note is back in his voice, and I shift closer to him. “You … regret what you did.”

He nods, then drains the glass. “Very much. For so very many reasons.”

He misses him too, I realize. But those shadows are back in his eyes, and his hand must be tight on the glass, because his knuckles are white.

He’s afraid of the magic. That’s the crux here, the basis of all this conflict. That’s been the problem in this kingdom for far too long: the magic and the fear of it. That started before Rhen was even born—and then he met Lilith. Here, magic never stood a chance.

I gingerly put weight on my good foot, then reach to take the wineglass out of his hand. Then, like the night he first told me about Lilith, I curl into the chair with him, tucking my head under his chin, feeling him sigh against me, some of the tension easing out of his body.

I reach between us and grab the hilt of the dagger he bought from Chesleigh for an impossible sum of money, with no proof of whether it works. Impervious to magic. A weapon to bring down a magesmith. I pull it free.

Rhen catches my wrist, but his grip is gentle, his eyes on mine.

I rub a thumb against the hilt. “Despite everything, I do not think Grey would use magic against you, Rhen.”

“This is war, Harper. He will use everything at his disposal.”

“You’re going to war because you’re afraid of Lilith. You’re risking your people—his people—because of Lilith. Grey asked for peace. Lia Mara asked for peace.” I pause, thinking of that moment in the stables when he told me I would have helped him find a better way. He teased me about how I don’t ask for help, and he’s right: I don’t. He once promised me anything within his power to give, but I don’t like to ask for anything at all.