The Half King

16

Falling.

Falling endlessly .

Falling through time and space .

Cerise jerked awake so violently that Blue yelped and rolled off the blankets onto the canvas floor. She clapped a hand over her heart, its wild beat confirming that she was, indeed, still alive. Silently, she sent up a prayer of thanks to the goddess while Blue righted himself and licked her chin.

“I’m sorry, boy,” she whispered to him, holding him tight.

She pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly, repeating the process until her heart stopped pounding. As the remnants of the images faded away, she rubbed her eyes and tried to gauge whether it was morning or night. The surrounding darkness had a faint glow to it that could indicate either dawn or dusk. Still lying on her back, she glanced first at the canvas ceiling, then to her left and right, and realized she was in her tent. She wondered how long she had been there. Peering through a thin gap in the canvas flaps, she noticed the sky growing half a shade brighter.

Morning , she decided. That meant the king would arrive soon, assuming his spirit was still drawn to her. After the way he had behaved recently, she had her doubts.

She licked her lips and felt around for her flagon. She must have slept for a moon’s age, because she was thirsty enough to drain a pond. When she found the flagon, she rolled onto her side and took a deep pull. The water tasted incredible, so clean and pure that she didn’t stop gulping until she finished the last drop. Panting, she wiped her mouth while her stomach rumbled. Oatcakes and sand melon sounded incredible at the moment. Mutton jerky and jackrabbit, too. She would eat the tent floor if she could. She gave her chest a few testing pats. The bubble behind her ribs had popped. As for her stomach, the only sensation she felt was the ravenous need to put food inside it.

“I’m starving,” she told Blue, ruffling his head. “I don’t suppose you can hunt me down some food?”

Blue bounced in place and yipped as if agreeing to the challenge. Then he turned around and darted outside.

Cerise was still lying on her pallet and debating whether or not to get up and follow him when a cloud of smoke blew open the tent flaps and washed over her, cool and intoxicating and smelling of clean, male skin. The ball of shadow gathered at her bedside and materialized into flesh. The king appeared, fully naked, seated on her blanket with his head tucked low and his knees drawn to his chest, exactly the same way she had found him in her dream. He didn’t look up at first, until she quietly cleared her throat to get his attention.

At the sound, he snapped his gaze to hers. His eyes were wide, his face slack. He peered at her as though she were a ghost. He even seemed to have stopped breathing.

“Your Highness, are you all right?” she whispered.

He inched his hand forward to touch her arm and gave it a testing squeeze. “You’re alive,” he breathed. “You’re actually alive.”

As she nodded slowly at him, realization struck. Had she experienced a vision ? Had she finally received the Sight?

What about her strange “dream” involving the Reverend Mother? Had that been a vision, too?

Where were all the oracles when she needed one?

“How?” the king asked in a barely audible whisper. “How is it possible? No one has ever followed me into the darkness. You were solid—flesh and bone. I felt you.”

If she’d been solid, then it couldn’t have been a vision. Her searing hope turned to confusion. “I was actually with you in that place? It happened in real time?”

Was there a Sight like that?

“How?” he repeated, but then he immediately shook his head as if he didn’t care anymore. His storm-cloud eyes locked on to her, and he delivered a look so raw and primal, so full of hunger that it stilled her lungs.

She froze like prey in the thrall of a predator. He crawled over her and took her face roughly in one hand, much like he had done in the stone room. She lay flat between her blankets as she peered up at him and splayed both hands by her side. A rush of anticipation flooded her senses, but she couldn’t forget her purpose. She pressed a palm against his chest to stop him.

It was the hardest thing she’d ever done.

“We can’t,” she told him.

He removed his hand from her face, but he drew nearer to her, lowering himself onto one elbow until she could feel the heat of his naked flesh radiating through the blanket that covered her legs.

“I’m sorry I was cold to you,” he whispered. “What I said in that place…I meant it. My spirit doesn’t belong to me anymore. It belongs to the girl with too much love inside her, the girl whose light scatters the darkness. My spirit wants the patron saint of ugly pups, toxic frogs, and foolish half kings.” His gaze moved over her face, burning her everywhere it landed. “I want you, Cerise. I’m sorry I gave you any reason to doubt that.”

He reached for her again, but now with deliberate slowness, as if seeking her permission. This time, she didn’t have the strength to turn him away. She took his hand and placed it on her cheek, holding it there.

“Kian,” she began, but before she could finish her thought, he lowered his mouth to hers and wiped her mind clean.

This was no dream, no strange vision. The king was kissing her…if she could call it that, because the way he used his mouth redefined the act of kissing as she had known it.

This was more than two pairs of lips pressed together. His every move was lethal, each tender sweep and teasing nibble touching her in the places his hands didn’t wander. She opened to him, tasting his mouth, stroking his tongue with hers, probing deeper and deeper and never getting her fill of him. With her pulse thrumming in her ears, she tugged him closer, pulling his chest on top of hers, needing to feel more of his weight for fear that her body might float away if he didn’t anchor her to the ground.

He moved his lips to her ear, where he whispered her name in an urgent breath that raised chills on her skin. She bared her neck to him and squirmed as he kissed a trail from her ear to her collar. Tugging aside her shirt, he bit the top of her shoulder and sent her eyes rolling back in her head. Then he used a knee to part her linen-clad thighs. She didn’t know what to expect next, and she wasn’t ready for the rush of sensation that followed when he rocked against her. Pleasure bloomed between her thighs, so hot and so intense that she couldn’t stop a groan from rising in her throat.

At that moment, Blue burst through the tent flaps. He must have thought her moans were of pain, because he delivered an earnest nip to the king’s backside.

Kian flinched away, hissing a curse. As he rolled aside to inspect his bottom, he gave her a view of Blue, who had dropped a lifeless jackrabbit on the tent floor.

Cerise clenched her jaw and exhaled a long, calming breath through her nose. All the blood in her body seemed to have pooled between her legs, creating a new, throbbing pulse point that ached for more of Kian’s touch. She tried to will away the sensation. She had to get control of herself; she’d already let things go too far.

Kian rubbed his backside and cast a glare at Blue. “I think someone’s jealous.”

Blue lay down and rested his head next to her pillow, seemingly confident that the threat to her safety was over. Cerise blew out another breath. Her body still fought her, but at least she was coming to her senses. She snuck a peek at the king’s rear end, finding his skin unbroken. Thank the goddess Blue had interrupted them.

Kian leaned down. “Now where were we?”

She placed a palm against his chest. “We can’t.”

“What’s wrong?” He pulled back to look at her, his eyes heavily lidded with desire. “Are you afraid that someone will hear?”

“No,” she said. “Well, yes, but that’s not why we have to stop.”

When he raised an eyebrow in question, she told him her worries surrounding the act of love—how the Order had claimed it would dim the Sight or prevent her from receiving it in the first place.

“And that’s not all,” she whispered. “Mother Strout’s journal said the sunset runes would only give themselves to a worshipper of pure faith.”

“You have the purest faith of anyone I’ve ever met.”

She shook her head. Faith of the heart wasn’t enough. “The Order says I have to give myself completely to the goddess, in body and in soul.”

“And do you believe them?”

She bit her lip. She didn’t know what to believe anymore.

“Would it help to tell you they’re wrong?” he asked, but then he immediately shook his head. “Of course it won’t. They sowed their seeds in you when you were just a child. Now those roots run deep.”

She took his face in her hands. She needed to break the curses; she needed to be worthy of the sunset runes and then to receive the Sight so she could use her gift to restore him. Her ability to follow him into the darkness last night, whatever it meant, didn’t seem to serve much of a purpose. If there was a chance that she could receive a real gift, a useful one, she had to protect it.

“It’s not long until my Claiming Day,” she said. “I don’t see the harm in waiting.”

“And what if you do receive the Sight?” he asked. “What then? Will you be so afraid to dim your gift that you end up dimming your own light in the process?”

She peeked up at him. She didn’t know what to say.

“Cerise, I respect your decision,” he whispered. “But as a king, I know a thing or two about control. The kings who came before me ruled by fear. My father was one of them. And strictly speaking, fear works. It’s a powerful motivator. But anyone who has to terrorize their people into submission is a poor and unimaginative leader. A strong ruler inspires others to follow them. The same is true of faith. Any order worth your prayers will lead by inspiration, but a false order will create illusions of fear to control you. They’ll make you confused, just like you’re confused now. They’ll tell you not to question them. They’ll invent rules and consequences that don’t exist to make you afraid of disobeying them—just like you’re afraid of disobeying them now. So ask yourself: Why can’t the priests inspire you by grace? Could it be because they have none?”

“But why would they lie about this?” she asked. “What would they stand to gain from keeping me a maiden?”

“Maybe nothing. Maybe they’re manipulating you just because they can.”

She didn’t believe that. No one lied without a reason; it required too much effort. “I don’t know what’s true,” she admitted. “I only know what feels right.”

“Does that mean my touch feels wrong to you?”

“No,” she told him at once. She refused to let him believe for even one moment that his touch was anything less than her greatest joy. “Maybe I am afraid of something that’s not real. But I don’t want to take the risk. There’s too much at stake—not just for you and me, but for Daerick and my sister’s baby and all of the firstborns who will suffer if I fail. Please tell me you understand.”

A flicker of disappointment crossed the king’s face, but he cupped her cheeks in both hands and placed a chaste kiss on her forehead. “If it’s important to you that we wait, then it’s important to me.” He winked. “Though I may have already ruined your reputation, my lady. These canvas walls are thinner than you think.”

She froze, her eyes wide. “Do you think anyone heard?”

“I suppose we’ll find out,” he told her.

And they did, a while later, after they had dressed for the day and walked out of her tent to a host of downturned gazes. The group had definitely heard her moans. She flushed hot with embarrassment. She could only imagine what everyone was thinking.

Nero slid her an amused glance, chuckling to himself as he stuffed his folded tent into a bag. She wordlessly handed him the jackrabbit Blue had retrieved and then strode to the fire to prepare a bowl of oats. Daerick and General Petros were also preparing their breakfasts. They scratched the backs of their necks and studied their shoes when she joined them. They put her in mind of two overprotective brothers working up the courage to give her an uncomfortable talk about men. And if she was the sister in this imaginary family, then Father Padron was the patriarch. He pierced her with a reproachful look that made her want to thrust out her tongue and remind him that he wasn’t her real father.

“I might expect this from the king, but not from you,” Father Padron hissed as soon as he got her alone. He had finished saddling his horse and insisted on helping with hers—an offer she had known better than to refuse. “The goddess gave you a body of flesh so you could serve her will, not so you could make yourself a vessel for male lust.”

Cerise whirled to face him, leaving the saddle unfastened. She had never heard a more twisted view of love or of women. It wasn’t simply the crude words that offended her, but the implication that the only thing Kian wanted from her was pleasure. As if that was all she had to offer. As if no man, least of all a king, could have any other interest in her than that.

“I’m sorry you think so little of me,” she said and then immediately corrected herself. “No, I’m not sorry, because I haven’t done anything wrong. The king barely laid a hand on me.”

“It didn’t sound that way.”

Another wave of heat flushed her cheeks. None of this was his business. She had chosen to stop Kian out of an abundance of caution, not because the act of love was shameful. “Nothing happened. But even if it had, it’s not forbidden by scrolls for an oracle to love.”

“It dims the Sight.”

“But how do we know that?” she asked. “I’ve heard of powerful Seers who engage in love. Where is it written that it dims the Sight? If the goddess didn’t intend for oracles to love, then why wouldn’t she relieve them of the desire for it, like she did for the priests?”

He must not have had a logical response for that, because instead of answering her question, he chose to prey on her heart’s worst fear. “It won’t last,” he said. “Even if you break the king’s curse, he will eventually discard you.”

She shook her head. She refused to believe that.

“Kings marry for power and for peace,” he went on. “Not for love. Even the late queen was no ordinary commoner. She had influence over the people. Respect. The old king believed a union with her would make the people respect him, too. He never loved her, and he made no secret about it.”

Father Padron leaned down so she could see him better. It wasn’t so much a gesture of tenderness as a means of inflicting more damage. “You could be his concubine .” The word made her flinch, exactly as he had intended. “Is that what you want? A life spent waiting in your chambers for the king to come to you when he’s finished bedding his wife? Feeding on the scraps of another woman? Watching him make a legitimate family with the queen while your belly swells with his bastard?”

Cerise couldn’t bear to think of it, let alone answer.

“Then by all means, give yourself to him. Forsake your calling to a higher purpose. But I don’t think that’s the life you want, Cerise. So tread carefully around those who matter most; otherwise, your path will be a lonely one that leads to ruin.” He mounted his horse and left her with one parting thought. “ That is what you stand to lose.”