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My eyes stung with tears. “You’re going to make me cry.”
“I’m not trying to.” His hand squeezed mine. “But it’s okay if you do. I wouldn’t think less of you if you did. There isn’t anything that could make me think less of you.”
“I know,” I whispered hoarsely. And I did. The reasonable, logical, and unfortunately very small part of my mind knew. “And I know what you’re getting at. I do. You’re talking about my time with Kolis.”
“I’m talking about things in general,” he said. “And about that.”
“It was nothing,” I said in a rush, my insides twisting, causing my breath to catch.
It was nothing.
Veses had said the same thing. She had spoken the same lie.
Ash’s lips brushed the curve of my cheek, and then he pulled his head back a few inches. His hand left mine. A heartbeat passed, and I felt the tips of his fingers on my chin. He tilted my head back. “I want you to know that when you’re ready to talk about everything, whether it’s nothing or not, I’ll be waiting. I’ll be ready.”
I squeezed my eyes shut so tightly I saw white for a few seconds. A flood of words crawled up my throat, but a wall of emotion and sheer will as strong as shadowstone choked them off.
Veses had lied.
I didn’t.
I wasn’t.
“By the way,” Ash said, his gruff voice reaching me. “Rhain is going to gather some food for us. He’s positive you’re starving.”
Gods, the way he’d changed the subject and the moment he chose to…
I loved this man.
I would always love him.
Counting the beats between each breath, I opened my eyes. “That’s nice…” I cleared my throat. “That’s nice of him. Which is kind of strange, isn’t it? Rhain being nice.”
Ash arched a brow. “Rhain is known as one of the kindest gods in the Shadowlands.”
“I’ll have to take your word for that.” My eyes widened when I saw an icy hardness creeping into his features. Shit. “I mean, Rhain had a reason not to be all that welcoming toward me.”
“I’m not sure I agree with that.”
“Rhain is loyal to you—”
Eather seeped from behind his pupils, stirring the energy inside me. “He is loyal to you,” he stated in a low growl. “His Queen.”
“Okay, he is loyal to both of us,” I amended, half-afraid for Rhain’s safety. The other half of me was, well, kind of aroused by Ash’s protectiveness. “But before, he was loyal to you. And since I had been pla
Ash said nothing to that, but I could practically see him plotting out his next…conversation with Rhain.
“Don’t say anything to him about it,” I stated.
“I won’t.”
“I’m serious. If he still harbors any ill feelings toward me,”—which I truly didn’t think he did—“or if anyone does, I will handle it. I need to. Especially if I’m going to be their Queen.”
“If?” Ash chuckled. “Liessa, you are their Queen.”
My stomach dipped. Gods, I was having a really hard time processing that.
“You’re right, though. You need to handle it,” he said as he picked up my hand. “I won’t say anything. “
“Wow,” I murmured, surprised.
“But if you handling it doesn’t actually handle it? And they still show you disrespect?” Wisps of eather churned through his eyes. “I will fucking destroy them.”
I blinked.
“No matter who they are,” he promised.
My lips twitched. I didn’t think smiling would help, nor would telling him that his fierceness when it came to me had to be more potent than radek wine. For once, I listened to that voice of reason.
“Speaking of Rhain,” I said after a moment. “Thought projection? That’s a nifty talent of his I was completely unaware of.”
“Many don’t know he can do that. You weren’t told about—”
“There was no reason for me to know then,” I interjected, understanding that sharing that kind of knowledge with me, who in the past had sought to betray Ash and hadn’t shown much interest in ruling the Shadowlands alongside him, would’ve been a risk. “So, all those times I could’ve sworn Rhain was communicating with you, even though I didn’t hear him speak, he was?”
One side of Ash’s lips quirked. “He probably was.”
Smiling, I watched him trail his finger along the golden swirl.
The imprint.
The direction of my thoughts immediately shifted as it occurred to me that perhaps it wasn’t me who had blessed our union. Maybe it had been the Fates. Or perhaps it happened because we were mates of the heart.
And maybe…maybe the fact that such a thing was real, meant that what I believed about my parents was also true. It explained why the agony of my father’s loss embittered my mother so deeply and how their union was important since it brought me into—I gasped, my head jerking up.
“What?” Concern filled his eyes.
“Holland saw this. He must have. All of this. Remember when he and Penellaphe came, and you were off to the side talking to her while Holland and I spoke? You asked me what he said, and I—well, I lied.”
“Shocker,” he murmured, the eather in his eyes twinkling. It struck me then what about his voice was different. It was lighter.
He was lighter.
My chest burned with emotion, causing Ash’s brow to pinch. The gods knew I’d probably just projected that emotion at his face. I had to suck it back down to speak without crying all over him. “Anyway, he said that broken thread of mine was unexpected and that fate was as ever-changing as the mind and heart. He was speaking of your heart. He told me that love is more powerful than the Arae can imagine. It was like he was trying to tell me not to give up hope.” My nose scrunched. “Because he knew…he knew you could love me.”
“He likely knew I was already in love with you, Sera.”
Hearing that made my heart skip. “And he couldn’t have told us any of this?”
“I think that would be obliterating that fine line he likes to walk,” he replied, lips turning up.
I rolled my eyes. “He could’ve at least been a little less vague. Like, I don’t know, randomly mention mates of the heart surpassing a kardia or—” Feeling the essence stir, I stopped what would surely be a lengthy tirade. “Okay. I’m just not going to think about that.”
His smile spread.
“So.” I drew out the word. “Why do you think you had the dream?”
He raised a brow.
“What? I mean, you had a vision. That’s kind of important.” I sat straight. “Do you think it was the mates of the heart thing? I…” I trailed off, letting that odd sense of knowing fully form without interruption.
It was the one thing more powerful than the so-called Arae.
It was that unexpected thread.
Unpredictable.
It was the unknown.
The unwritten.
Powerful.
It was something not even the Fates dared to predict or control.
The only thing that could disrupt fate.
It couldn’t be found.
It could only be accepted.
It was even more powerful than what coursed through the veins of the Primals and their creators. Equally awe-inspiring and terrifying in its selfishness. It could snap a thread unexpectedly and prematurely.
It could extend a thread of life by sheer will, becoming a piece of pure magic that could not be extinguished.
It was true love of the heart and soul.
“It is because we are…we are heartmates.” I nodded smugly. “I feel very clever for answering my own question.”
“You mean figuring out the very obvious answer?” he suggested dryly.
I swung at him again, and like before, he caught my wrist. “Fuck,” he groaned, pushing me onto my back and bracing his weight on his forearms as he leaned over me. “I love you.”
There was so much we needed to deal with—so much uncertainty. There was Kolis. The other Primals. All the other stuff that kept popping into my head whenever it went quiet. The things those unknown voices that I knew were as old as this realm said to me while I was in stasis. What I saw. What I knew. A lot of it was disjointed, making little sense, but I suspected all the scattered pieces would come together if given time. Then there was how my…my Ascension affected Iliseeum and the mortal realm—the latter something I was almost afraid to ask about because I suddenly recalled the blast of power that had left me, hitting the skies above Lasania. There was Sotoria’s soul, and the plans surrounding it—things that left me uncomfortable.