Rise of Fire (Reign of Shadows #2)(46)

Chasan didn’t reply. I heard nothing beyond the hard rhythm of his breath.

Emotion welled up in my throat as I thought about the man who had died tonight, the sound of his cries, the noise his bones made as the dwellers tore him apart. And the thud of Riana’s head. Her father’s scream.

“Say nothing.” I nodded fiercely. “There is not an excuse, not a defense you can offer.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I can’t marry such a person.”

“No?” he quickly retorted, his voice ruthless as a whip. “And who might you marry, Luna?” His voice twisted into something hard and mean. “Your precious Fowler? I just passed him in the hall with my sister. I’m sure you saw them, too. Quite the cozy pair.”

He knew exactly where I was the most tender and bruised and he struck me there with a well-aimed blow. “I needn’t marry anyone,” I flung out.

“If you think that, then you really are a fool. You think you can go against my father? He will never let you leave this place, and if you don’t do what he asks you’ll be spending the rest of your days as a guest in our dungeon. Or worse.”

His words bubbled like toxin in my veins. I cranked back my arm and struck him in the chest with my balled-up fist. “Is that why you hunt dwellers? Because your father demands it? Is that why you capture them and bring them back here? You do it because he tells you to? What else do you do that he demands? Oh, that’s right! You marry lost princesses.”

“Luna, stop.”

“Tell me, Chasan, who are those people that have to die for your amusements? What have they done to deserve that?”

“They’ve made an enemy of my father . . . of Lagonia.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want this. I don’t want to be here. I’m not a part of this world where you butcher people. You’re a coward.” I turned away, but he grabbed me and hauled me back to face him.

He gave me a small shake, snapping my head back to focus on him. “You are a part of it. No matter what you want. You’re going to be a part of it and you’ll say nothing to the contrary unless you want to bring the wrath of my father down on you, and trust me, that’s not something you want. Understand?”

My breath fell in hard pants.

“Say you understand me, Luna.” There was an edge of panic that I had never heard before in his liquid-smooth voice. “Say it,” he insisted, chasing the words with another shake. “I won’t have you hurt. I can’t.”

His words, as much unsaid as said, deflated my anger. “You’re afraid of him,” I whispered.

“He’s a monster,” he admitted, dropping his hands from my arms, and for the first time I considered that. I considered him. I thought about what it must be like to be brought up by such a man . . . how trapped you must feel when your own father was a nightmare you had to face each and every day. Not that different from Fowler.

We stood in silence for a long moment, only our breaths between us. He closed the space, his bigger body radiating heat and vitality as it crept toward me. “We don’t have to live in fear forever. We just need to hold on, Luna.” His forehead dropped to mine, fingers flexing on my arms. “We just have to wait it out.”

Wait for Tebald to die. That was what he was saying. We had to wait until he was no longer in power and we could take over.

“You have a good heart, Luna,” he continued, his voice insinuating into my spinning thoughts. “Better than my own. Better than anyone I’ve ever met before. You want to do the right thing even if it hurts you. Only I don’t want you to be hurt.” His lips ghosted over mine. I gasped at the brush of contact.

I didn’t have time to pull away from his almost-kiss. It was over as quickly as it had begun, but I still felt a tight clench low in my stomach. Regret whispered through me. I could have kicked myself for the weak thought. Why should I feel loyalty to Fowler when he had already forgotten about me?

“I want to try to be more like you, Luna. Together, with you, I think I can. We could be good together. We could be good for Lagonia and Relhok.”

His words wove through me, a seductive spell sinking deep. Could he mean that? I weighed the possibility. Relhok and Lagonia united, without Cullan or Tebald at the helm. The black eclipse and its dwellers would still exist, but things wouldn’t have to be so hopeless.

Marriage to Chasan meant not living for myself, but it also meant making a difference in the lives of others. I could make this world a better place. Wasn’t that what Sivo and Perla had groomed me to do? They had believed that was my fate. They taught me to believe it, too.

“I can see you’re thinking about it, Luna.” His hands fell to his sides with a whisper. I nodded once, relieved at the distance between us so that I could think without his hands touching me. “Good. Consider it. You have time. A little time,” he amended. However much time his father would give us.

He moved away toward the door, his steps soft and steady in the great expanse of my room. “We’ll talk again soon.”

Then I was alone in the pulsing silence of my bedchamber with only my clamoring thoughts for company.





TWENTY-ONE


Fowler


IT TOOK A little longer than I’d hoped to disengage myself from Maris and send her on her way to her own bedchamber. She was tenacious. I would give her that. She had been waiting all her life for me. Not me specifically, but the prince she had been promised. There was a distinction. She didn’t know me. She didn’t care to know me, and she certainly didn’t love me. I was merely the prize that had been dangled before her nose all these years. Now that I was here she did not know the meaning of self-control.