Rise of Fire (Reign of Shadows #2)(48)

She continued backing away from me, cocking her head at a wary angle. “If you are found in here—”

“They’re keeping us apart.” I stayed dogged in my pursuit of her, my steps biting into the plush rug covering the stone floor. “You have to see that. Since we arrived here. They don’t want us alone together.”

She shrugged, twisting her hands into the voluminous fabric of her nightgown. “It matters not. There’s nothing we have to say to each other worth risking their displeasure—”

“Risking their displeasure? Do you hear yourself? You sound frightened . . . beaten. Where is the Luna that I know?”

“Maybe you don’t know me. Maybe you never did. I certainly don’t know you.” Her chest lifted high on a quick inhalation. I knew she was thinking about me standing in the corridor with Maris, and regret stabbed me in the chest.

“You’re wrong.” I stepped forward and touched her face. She flinched but didn’t pull back. I clung to that. I could still reach her. “Do you feel my gaze on you? Do you feel my heart, Luna? It’s yours. It belongs to you. You know me.” I added my other hand to her face, holding her as gently as a bird in my hands, careful not to crush her wings.

Moisture gathered in her ink-dark eyes. Her voice came out in a hoarse whisper. “I thought I did. I don’t blame you for your birth. I’m not angry about that anymore. It’s not your fault who your father is. But that doesn’t change the fact that I still don’t know you. I don’t know what it is that truly drives you, I don’t know why you’re running from your father, I don’t know why you’re agreeable to staying here, to marrying Maris—”

“You. You drive me. It didn’t used to be that way. I can’t explain exactly when or how it became that way. But that’s the way it is.”

She didn’t speak for some time, various emotions flickering across her face. She looked down at the ground as though she felt the weight of my stare and needed to escape it. “What?” I asked. “What are you thinking? Tell me, Luna. Talk to me.”

She gave a slight shake of her head. “Maris—”

“Means nothing to me,” I finished for her. “I know how it sounded. It’s how I need it to look.”

“What are you saying? You don’t really want to stay here and marry—”

“I’m saying that we’re getting out of here. I’m saying that we can still go to Allu. It’s not some hopeless, distant dream. We can be together, Luna, but they have to believe we want to be here. They have to believe we’re content, and when they don’t suspect it, we escape.”

The longest pause followed. Bleakness crossed her face. “What of Relhok? My kingdom? If neither one of us marries into the royal family of Lagonia, then we leave Relhok to Cullan. I don’t know if I can do that. I know weeks ago I thought I could.” She gave a slight shrug. “I thought the dream of Allu was the only thing that mattered, but now . . .”

Frustration bubbled up inside me. How much of herself would she give? How much would she sacrifice? She was still willing to give up everything for a country she didn’t even know.

I refused to let her do that.

I pressed on, desperate to reach her. “Why are you so tied to Relhok? You have no memory of it.” I shook my head. She bit her lip, clearly conflicted. “Do you so badly want to be a queen that you would marry a stranger?”

“It’s not that,” she shot back quickly, hot color flooding her face. “I’m not that shallow or power hungry. That’s never what I wanted. If you claim to know me, you should know that much!”

“Then what is it? Tell me, Luna. Because I cannot stay here and watch you marry him.”

The moisture in her eyes pooled and spilled over, dripping down those pale freckled cheeks. I swiped at the tears with my thumbs. When they didn’t stop, I leaned in and pressed my mouth over each cheek, kissing the salty tracks with far more restraint than I felt. The need to grab her and crush her to me, pull her inside myself, was overwhelming. I’d never felt this before.

“My father knows you’re alive,” I whispered hoarsely, pausing to let that sink in, hoping she fully understood what I was saying. “Have you considered what that means?”

She took a sip of air. Her mouth was so close, damp from tears and that sweet dew that clung to her. “It means the kill order on girls is lifted. That’s the only thing that matters.”

“You know what I’m saying.” My thumbs pressed a fraction deeper, as though I could will her to acknowledge it to me. “There is no way he would let you live now. He’ll be sending someone. An assassin, soldiers, an entire army. You’re a threat to his crown. He cannot let your claim go uncontested. We cannot stay here. Even if we wanted to, it’s not possible.”

“You make it sound so easy.” She rubbed at the center of her forehead as though she was feeling the beginnings of a headache. I felt a twinge of guilt. She had just survived an encounter with dwellers, and here I was hounding her, demanding she agree to put her life in my hands and escape this place with me. But if she didn’t agree, she’d likely die here. Nowhere near Tebald was safe. He was a ruthless tyrant. And my father would eventually come for her. Even dwellers wouldn’t stop him.

“We will need a strategy, but we can break out of here.”