A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire (Blood and Ash Book 2)

The sudden roaring in my ears made me think I hadn’t heard Alastir correctly. Or maybe it was because my heart pounded so hard that I’d misheard.

But I hadn’t, had I? Because, suddenly, I remembered everything Alastir had said the morning I met him. He’d spoken of obligations upon Casteel’s return. Marriage was definitely an obligation.

A sharp slice of pain tore through my chest. It felt like a crack, and it sounded like thunder in my ears. How no one else heard it was beyond me.

Slowly, as if I were caught in the stage between waking and sleep, I turned to Casteel. He was speaking, but I couldn’t hear him, and I couldn’t believe what I’d heard.

What I’d just learned.

Promised to another when I met him in the Red Pearl and he’d been my first kiss, when I knew him as Hawke and had grown to trust him, desire him, and care for him. Promised to another when he’d taken me under the willow and told me that he didn’t care what I was, but rather who I was. When he showed me the kind of pleasure we could find with each other, first in the Blood Forest and then again in New Haven. Promised to another when I learned the truth of who he was and when we took from each other in the woods outside of the keep, when I fed him, and he thanked me afterward.

Promised to another when he proposed marriage as the only way for us to get what we wanted. Promised to another when he said that we could pretend. Promised to another as Kieran claimed we were heartmates, and I decided to give him my blood.

Promised to another when I told him in the cavern that it had to be real.

Somehow, even though I knew that the arrangement between us had not been borne of love, and I wasn’t sure Kieran knew what he was talking about when it came to the heartmates thing, this betrayal still stabbed more deeply than all Casteel’s other betrayals.

And if that wasn’t a wake-up call that I’d already slipped too far, I didn’t know what would be.

Pain I didn’t want to lay claim to ripped through me so fiercely that I thought I would be split in two, but snapping on its heels was an anger so intense that my entire body vibrated with it.

Only seconds passed between when Alastir spoke and the bitter, acidic burn of rage pouring like a rainstorm through me.

“Promised to another?” I demanded, my voice surprisingly steady but so damn raw. I didn’t care that we were in a room full of people who disliked me.

“It’s not what you think, Penellaphe.”

My brows flew up. “It’s not? Because I imagine that promised to another means the same thing in Atlantia as it does in Solis.”

“What it means doesn’t matter.” His eyes were an icy golden color as he stared down at me with an expression I couldn’t believe I was seeing. He looked shocked. He looked angry with me. And I could not believe what I was hearing or seeing or living.

And he felt angry. Even with my own volatile emotions I could still feel the cool splash of surprise from him and the burn of anger underneath it.

“How could you—?” he started, jaw flexing. His chest rose with a heavy breath. “The promise was an oath I never took. Did I, Alastir?” He tore his gaze from me. “Can you claim otherwise?”

“It was all but agreed to,” Alastir responded. His anger burned through my senses, scorching my skin. “You know what your father has planned for decades, Casteel.”

Decades.

A part of me recognized that Casteel denied what Alastir had stated and that Alastir had basically confirmed such. So, there was a slight lessening of my fury, a halt to the continuing cracking in my chest, but the pain and the anger were still there. This had been discussed for decades? For longer than I’d actually breathed life? Did it not occur to Casteel to tell me any of this? To warn me? I pulled my senses back, closing them down.

Vaguely, I became aware of the silver-haired man and Kieran approaching. They were close enough to hear everything—close enough for me to see that the newcomer was a wolven, and that the curve of his jaw and the lines of his cheek seemed familiar.

“You mean that for decades my father assumed that I would eventually agree, but not once did I ever give him or anyone an indication of such,” Casteel fired back. “You know that. How in the world did this even come up?”

“How in the world did you not think to tell her?” Alastir demanded.

There was a soft inhale from the tables of Descenters, and the silver-haired man murmured, “I have the best timing.”

My gaze shot to his and locked. The pale blue eyes flared brightly, nearly luminous as his lips parted. They moved, but there was no sound. His surprise was like freezing rain, sudden and all-consuming. He jerked, taking a step back. Was it my scars? Or did he feel that weird static charge even though we didn’t touch?

“Do you think I don’t know why you brought this up?” Casteel queried in a voice too soft, snapping my attention back to him. “It is weak of you.”

Alastir tensed beside me. “Did you just call me weak?”

A smirk twisted Casteel’s lips. “What you just did was weak of you. If you think that equates to weakness of mind or body, that is on you. Not me.”

The wolven had recovered from his reaction to me. He placed his hands on the table, and when he spoke, his voice was low. “You should both calm down.”

“I’m perfectly calm, Jasper,” Casteel replied.

This was Jasper. The wolven who was supposed to marry us. Great.

“Since you’re bound and determined to have this conversation right now when you should’ve had it in private ages ago, then let’s have it out for all to witness since everyone here has been thinking it from the moment they learned of your engagement,” Alastir snarled. “You may not have agreed, but an entire kingdom, including Gianna, believed you would marry upon your return.”

Who in the hell was Gianna? Was that her name? The one the King and Queen expected Casteel to marry when he returned?

“This has nothing to do with Gianna,” Casteel replied curtly.

“I can actually agree with that,” Alastir returned. “It has everything to do with the kingdom—your land and your people and your obligation to them. Marrying Gianna would’ve strengthened the relationship between the wolven and the Atlantians.”

Jasper’s head snapped in Alastir’s direction. “You are overstepping, Alastir. You do not speak for the entirety of our people.”

The older wolven burned with rage beside me, but there was a connection there, one that harkened back to Landell, to one of the things he’d said in response to Casteel stating his intention to make me the Princess. He’d said that it was supposed to be an honor meant to bring all of their people together.

“I know what my obligations are.” Casteel’s words fell like chips of ice. “And I know exactly what my father expects of me. Those two things are not mutually exclusive, nor would marrying a wolven suddenly erase the deaths of over half of their people. Anyone who believes that is a fool.”

 “I didn’t say I agreed with it.” Alastir picked up his drink.

“Perhaps this conversation should occur at another time,” Emil stressed, having moved to Alastir’s side. He looked to Jasper as if to say, “do something.”

Jasper sat in the chair Kieran had occupied, and quite frankly, he stared at Alastir as if he hoped the man would continue.

“You mean when we don’t have one of them sitting right there?” a man spoke, an Atlantian who I thought had been at the house Beckett was injured at. “Who was raised in the pit of vipers and is most likely just as poisonous as the nest she grew up in? When we are this close to finally seeking retribution against them?”

Casteel opened his mouth, but something unlocked inside me, raising its head. And whatever it was breathed fire. Years of grooming to remain silent and demure, to allow people to do and say whatever they wanted to me caught fire and burned to embers and ash. I was simply faster in my response. “I’m not one of them,” I said, and the focus of the entire room shifted in my direction. All except Casteel. He still watched the Atlantian, and I had a wicked suspicion that we were seconds away from repeating what had happened to Landell. “I was their Maiden, and even though I suspected the Ascended were hiding things, I fully admit to not opening my eyes to who they truly were until I met Casteel. But I was never one of them.” I met the Atlantian’s stare, tasting his anger and distrust, feeling it swell inside me, fueling my burning fury as if he were a lit match. “And the next time you want to call me a poisonous viper, at least have the courage to do so while looking me straight in the eye.”

Silence.

Ian would’ve said it was so silent you could hear a cricket sneeze.

And then Jasper let out a low whistle.

The Atlantian snapped out of his stupor. “You were their Maiden. The Chosen. The Queen’s favorite. Isn’t that what they say?”

“Dante,” Emil warned, shooting the fair-haired Atlantian a sharp look. “No one asked for your opinion on this.”

“But I’m glad he gave it since I’m well aware that he is not the only one thinking this,” I said, flicking my gaze over the room. “Yes, I was the Queen’s favorite, and I was raised in a cage so pretty that it took a very long time for me to see it for what it was. The Ascended planned to use my blood to make more vamprys. That was why I was their Maiden. Would you feel loyalty to your captors? Because I do not.”

Casteel looked at me then, his gaze still icy, but something else moved in those depths. There was no time to figure out what it was. And at the moment, I frankly didn’t care.

“If that is the truth, then I salute you.” Dante raised a glass. “We all salute you, and I mean that seriously. It’s truly few and far between these days that anyone from Solis has had their eyes opened. No offense to those who have who are present.”

There were several murmurs before Dante continued. “To learn that you’re of Atlantian descent does explain why you’re important to them, but you—”

“Are of better use to you dead?” I interrupted as Quentyn and Beckett came out of the kitchen, carrying freshly baked bread. They stopped, their eyes widening.

Dante lowered his glass, staring at me.

“I know many of you would prefer to send me back to Queen Ileana in pieces, as does the King, I’m sure.” I lifted my chin even as a fine tremor shook my hands. “Part of me can’t blame any of you for wanting that, especially after learning the truth about them.”

A muscle clenched in the Atlantian’s jaw, but it was Alastir who spoke. “I told you, Casteel. I said that you would encounter pushback if you proceeded with this.”

So did Landell.

“And what did I tell you when you said that before?” Casteel asked.

“That this is what you want. That she is what you want,” Alastir said, and my heart twisted in my chest. “And you know I want to believe that. Everyone in this room does.”

I doubted that.

“And the King and Queen will want to believe that,” Alastir said. “Especially Eloana. But you’ve spent decades trying to free your brother instead of accepting what the rest of us have come to terms with. You refused your duties to your people because you weren’t ready to let him go, something that I could understand even if it pained me. The last time you left, you had to know that there was no longer any hope that he’d return to us, but you still went, gone for years—gone for so long that your mother began to fear that you too had suffered the same fate as Malik,” he said, and my heart squeezed for a wholly different reason while Casteel showed no reaction. “But you’re returning home with the most guarded jewel of the Ascended. There are few who truly believe this doesn’t have anything to do with your brother.”

“If I hadn’t accepted my brother’s fate, I wouldn’t be leaving Solis,” Casteel said, and only Kieran and I knew how much it cost him to speak those words. “It’s no secret that I planned to use Penellaphe as ransom. I spent those years far from home working to get close to her.” This he directed not just to Alastir but to the entire room. “I succeeded, and when the time was right, I made my move. I took her.”

Casteel spoke the truth that was still hard to hear. “I took her, and I kept her, but not to use her. Somewhere along the way, I no longer saw her as a bargaining chip or a tool for revenge. I saw her for who she was. Who she is—this beautiful, strong, intelligent, endlessly curious and kind woman who was as much a victim of the Ascended as any Atlantians. I fell in love with her, probably long before I even realized I had.” He laughed, the sound rough. And gods, it sounded so real that my throat knotted. “My plans changed. What I believed about Malik changed. And this was before I learned what she was. That she is part Atlantian. She is the reason I came home.”

My gaze collided with Kieran’s, and he nodded as if to confirm what Casteel said.

But how could it be?

When he’d been expected to marry someone else for decades and never once told me? Then again, he had yet to really say a word about Shea.

Pressing my lips together, I looked away. If only all of what he’d said was true. The future would be different. Everything would be different. I wished he hadn’t spoken those words at all.

The old woman Casteel had talked to earlier spoke up. “And you knew that he originally planned to use you?”

“I didn’t at first, not until after he’d already gained my trust and that of the Ascended in charge of me. When I found out…” I trailed off, thinking my reaction was best not known.

“She stabbed me in the heart with a bloodstone dagger,” Casteel finished instead.

The old woman blinked while Jasper gave a sudden bark of laughter. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But damn…are you for real?”

“It’s true,” Kieran confirmed. “She thought it would kill him.”

Emil started to grin but one look from Casteel stopped that in its tracks.

Shifting in the suddenly uncomfortable chair, I wondered how in the world that piece of knowledge helped anything. “I was a little angry.”

Casteel arched a brow as he glanced at me. “A little?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Okay. I was very angry.”

“I didn’t know that,” Alastir said from behind the rim of his cup.

“Obviously, Casteel takes after his father when it comes to women with sharp objects,” Jasper commented with a snort. “I feel like I’m missing some vital information that Delano conveniently left out when he met me halfway.”

I frowned, but at least I knew where Delano had been.

“You stabbed Casteel?” Jasper repeated. “In the heart? With bloodstone. And you thought it would kill him?”

“In my defense, I felt bad afterward.”

“She did cry,” Casteel remarked.

I was going to stab him again.

“But I trusted him, and he betrayed that,” I continued. “I was the Maiden, nearly groomed my entire life to remain pure and focused only on my Ascension. I was Chosen to be given to the gods, even though I never chose the life. And I don’t know what you know of me, but I had no control over where I went, who I spoke to or could speak with. I was veiled, unable to even look someone in the eye if they were allowed to speak with me. I didn’t get to choose what I ate, when I left my chambers, or who was allowed to even touch me. But he was the first thing I’d ever truly chosen for myself.”

My voice cracked slightly as the knot expanded. I took a shallow breath, feeling Casteel’s gaze on me, but I refused to look at him. I couldn’t, because I didn’t want to know what he was feeling.

“I chose him when I knew him as Hawke,” I forced myself to continue, to say what I needed to say so that everyone in the room could hear me even if it felt like I was scraping at a wound in my chest with rusty nails. “I didn’t know what that would mean at that time, other than I wanted to have something that I actually wanted for myself. I’d already begun to question things—the Ascended and if I could be or do what they required of me. I’d already begun to realize that I couldn’t live like I was any longer. That the Maiden wasn’t me, and I was better and stronger and meant for something other than that. But he…he was the catalyst in a way. And I chose him. I chose him because he made me feel like I was something other than the Maiden, and he saw me when no one else ever really did. He made me feel alive. He valued me for who I am and didn’t try to control me. And then it all seemed like a lie once I realized the truth of who he was and why he was a part of my life.”

Neither Alastir nor Jasper spoke. I could still feel Casteel’s stare.

I swallowed, but the knot was still there. “So, yes, I was very angry, but what I felt for him before remained, and after learning the entire truth about the Ascended and what had happened to him and to his brother, I could understand why he set out to use me. That doesn’t mean that it was okay, but I could understand why. I refused his proposal at first, just so you know. Accepting him and…and allowing myself to feel what I did for him was a betrayal to those who were lost in all of this, and it felt like a betrayal to myself. But I still chose him despite it all.”

I closed my eyes. Up until this moment, I’d spoken the truth, some of it new to me, and I did so for the first time in front of Casteel. What came next was easier because it was the lie. “We’ve moved past how we met. At least, I have. He loves me, and I wouldn’t be here in a room full of people who have spent the entire dinner staring at me in distaste or distrust,”—I opened my eyes, slowly looking across the table, to the two mortal men—“if what we felt for one another wasn’t real. I surely would not be on my way to an entire kingdom who will likely whisper each time they see me, distrust everything there is about me, and look upon me as if I deserve not even minimal respect.”

The two men looked away, their cheeks flushing.

“I…” Dante sat down. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You,”—Casteel cleared his throat—“you don’t have to say anything. You, all of you, just need to accept that this is real.”

Real.

Alastir leaned back, his gaze heavy and somber.

It was Jasper who spoke, with a faint lift of his lips. “If you’ve chosen her, then how can we not do the same?”

Hatred.

That was what I tasted in the back of my throat, what I inhaled with every breath as I sat at the table. It came from different directions at different times, pinging around the room even though most of the tension had left once it didn’t appear as if Casteel would tear out the hearts of Alastir or Dante. Most returned to their dinners and conversation. Except for Casteel, who watched me, and the silver-haired wolven who also studied me as if I were some sort of puzzle.

But several others in the room didn’t stare and remained silent. People who hadn’t projected their emotions before but did so now.

Their anger coated every drink I took or piece of food I swallowed with a bitter taste. It took no leap of logic to realize that they weren’t happy with what Casteel or Jasper had said. Nor anything I’d said had changed what they believed of me. It wasn’t all of them, thank the gods, but it was enough for me to know that I was still not welcome here.

Restlessness hummed through me, an almost nervous sort of energy as I tried and failed to shut off the emotions of others. I didn’t know why I couldn’t when reading the emotions only when I wanted to had become so much easier throughout the day. Was it because I was tired? Maybe it was what happened with Beckett or possibly even what I’d done in the cavern with Casteel.

Or perhaps it was learning that Casteel had kept yet another thing from me?

It was probably all of those things that played a role in my sudden failure to shut down my abilities.

I looked at my plate of mostly untouched food, and I…I simply did not want to sit here any longer.

And I was tired of doing things I didn’t want to do.

“Excuse me,” I said to no one in particular, rising from my seat.

Jasper watched me but said nothing as I stepped around the chair. I walked past the tables, aware of conversations halting as I passed. I kept my chin high, wishing I’d had the forethought to go through the clothing Vonetta had brought over. Nothing took the dignity out of one’s exit like wearing clothing several sizes too large.

But I doubted being dressed in pretty tunics or even the richest of gowns would’ve changed a damn thing.

I pushed open one of the doors and stepped outside, dragging in deep breaths clean of others’ emotions. Stars had already started to glimmer in the deepening sky, and I stared upward. I was finally able to close myself off.

Turning, I spotted Delano and Naill sitting on the crumbling wall that led to the Bay. I didn’t try to read them, and it worked. Their emotions weren’t forced onto me.

“You look like you could use a drink.” Delano offered the bottle of brown liquid he held. “It’s whiskey.”

I walked over, taking the bottle by the neck. “Thank you,” I said, lifting it. The woody aroma was powerful.

“Tastes like horse piss,” Naill said. “Fair warning.”

I nodded, tipping the bottle to my mouth and taking a long swallow. The liquor burned my throat and eyes. Coughing, I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth as I handed the bottle to Delano. “I don’t know what horse piss tastes like, but I’m sure that’s a good comparison.”

Naill chuckled.

“We were getting ready to head in there.” Delano stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles. “But we figured we’d wait until the air cleared a bit.”

“Good choice,” I muttered.

“Looks like the room is airing out now.” Naill’s gaze flicked over my shoulder.

The muscles in the back of my neck tightened. “Please tell me that’s not him.”

“Well, I suppose it depends on who him is,” Delano drawled.

I turned to see Casteel coming down the steps and across the short distance that separated us, his gaze locked onto mine.

“I have a feeling the air is going to get a bit thick out here.” Naill hopped off the wall. “I think it’s time we head inside.”

“Wise call,” Casteel remarked, his gaze, nearly feral, never leaving mine.

Delano pushed off the wall. “Please, no stabbing. All of that makes me anxious.”

I crossed my arms. “No promises.”

Casteel smirked but said nothing as Naill and Delano made their way back into the fort. He stared at me.

I stared at him. “Do you need something?”

“That’s a loaded question.”

“I was hoping it was a rhetorical one with the answer being: obviously, no,” I said.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he replied. “Why did you leave?”

“I wanted a few moments to myself, but apparently, that isn’t going to happen.”

A muscle flexed in his jaw. “I’m sorry, Poppy.”

My brows lifted as I focused on him. There was still a potent thread of anger in him, and I didn’t delve deeper into the layers of emotions. “About what exactly?”

“About more than one thing, apparently,” he replied, and my eyes narrowed. “But I’d like to start with how my people have behaved toward you. I hate that they’ve made you feel so unwelcome, and I hate that you know how they feel. I can promise you that will change.”

“You…you really believe that you can change that? You can’t,” I told him before he answered. “They will either accept me or not. Either way, I expected this, and there’s no way you didn’t. You just hoped I wouldn’t read them.”

“I wished you wouldn’t have known,” he corrected. “How could I not wish that? And I do believe how they feel about you will change.”

Pressing my lips together, I looked away. I didn’t think it was impossible for them to change. Feelings were not stagnant. Neither were opinions or beliefs, and if we stopped believing people were capable of change, then the world might as well be left to burn.

“We need to talk and not about the people in that room,” he said.

I turned from him to where the reflection of the moon rippled across the Bay. “That’s the last thing I want to do right now.”

“Do you have better ideas?” He stepped closer, the heat and scent of him reaching me. “I know I do.”

My gaze shot to him. “If you’re suggesting what I think you are, I am going to stab you in the heart again.”

Casteel’s eyes flashed a warm honey. “Don’t tempt me with empty promises.”

“You are so twisted.”

“Alastir was right. I do take after my father when it comes to women with sharp objects,” he said.

“I don’t care.”

He ignored that. “My mother has stabbed my father a time or a dozen over the years. He claims he deserved it each time, and truthfully, he never seemed all that torn up about being stabbed. Probably had something to do with the fact that they’d be holed up in their private chambers for days after a spat.”

“Glad to know the disturbed apple doesn’t fall too far from the crazy tree.”

He chuckled.

The door opened behind us, and Kieran prowled out. “Don’t yell at me,” he said as the door swung closed behind him. “But my father wants to speak to you.”

“Your father?” I frowned, and then it occurred to me. “Jasper?”

Kieran nodded, and now I knew why I thought some of Jasper’s features were familiar.

A muscle flexed in Casteel’s jaw once more. “He’s going to—”

“Go speak with Jasper,” I cut in. “Because as I already said, I don’t really want to talk to you right now.”

“Keep telling yourself that, and maybe it’ll be true.” Casteel turned to Kieran as I came this close to punching him. “I really hope your father has a good reason for wanting to speak with me right this moment.”

“Knowing him, he probably just wants to laugh at you,” Kieran replied. “So have fun with that.”

Casteel flipped Kieran off as he stalked back toward the doors.

“Very princely,” Kieran called after him and then turned to me. “Come, Penellaphe. I’ll take you back to your room. Then I must ensure that Casteel actually doesn’t end up slaughtering someone, because my father is sure to drive him crazy.”

“I don’t—” Exhaling heavily, I was too irritated to even argue. “Whatever.”

Kieran extended an arm and waited. Swallowing a mouthful of curses, I walked past him.

“That was a spectacular dinner,” he said as we rounded the fortress.

“Wasn’t it?”

He snorted.

Neither of us spoke as he walked me back to my room. It was only when he went to close the door that I asked, “Your father is the what? Leader of the wolven?”

“He speaks for them, yes. Brings any concerns or ideas to the King and Queen.”

Remembering that Vonetta planned to travel home to visit their mother, I asked, “Is your father normally in Spessa’s End?”

“He comes quite regularly to check on the wolven that are here. Sometimes, our mother travels with him, but she’s due soon.”

For a moment, what he’d said didn’t make sense. And then it did. “Your mother is pregnant?”

A faint grin appeared. “You look so surprised.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that…you’re around Casteel’s age, right?”

“We’re the same age. Vonetta—who won’t be the baby of the family much longer—was born sixty years after me,” he answered. “My father is nearly six hundred years old—my mother four hundred. Next to Alastir, he is one of the oldest wolven still alive.”

“That’s a…hell of an age gap between children,” I murmured.

“Not when you think about how long it takes to rear a wolven. Beckett may resemble a mortal who is no older than thirteen, but in reality, he is older than you by many years. So is Quentyn.”

That made sense. Casteel had said that aging slowed once an Atlantian entered the Culling. Quentyn may look my age or slightly younger, but he was most likely years older than me. “How did your father come to this position?”

“Not many wolven survived the war, so there simply wasn’t a lot to choose from,” he explained, and that…that was sad to consider. “Are you sure that is what you want to ask me about?”

It was.

And it wasn’t.

Another question burned through me, but I wasn’t going to ask that.

Kieran hesitated and then nodded. “Then goodnight, Penellaphe.”

“Goodnight,” I murmured, standing there until the door closed. Then I was alone. Alone with only my feelings, my own thoughts.

Promised to another.

Weariness enveloped me as I slowly walked into the bedroom. I went to the clothing Vonetta had brought over, relieved to see not a single item of white. I picked up a dark blue tunic with fine gold threading along the hem and edging. It was sleeveless and long, with slits up the sides. There was another that was gold, nearly the color of an elemental’s eyes. I smoothed my hand over the soft, cottony material. There was another shirt of emerald green, one with frilly sleeves and a fancy neckline. I sat the tops aside, finding two pairs of black leggings that were as thick as breeches, and both appeared as if they’d fit me. A hooded cloak made of cotton was folded on top of several new undergarments. Vonetta had mentioned the cloak, and now that I saw it, I knew she was right when she’d said it was far more suitable than the heavier winter cloaks.

But it was what lay underneath that confused me.

It was a splash of blue nearly as pale as a wolven’s eyes. I picked up the slippery, silky material, my eyes widening at the tiny straps and minimal length.

The thing was indecent.

But the nightgown I’d been given in New Haven was far too heavy for nights that didn’t drop below freezing, and this…this nightgown didn’t actually require a sash to stay closed, so there was that.

Dropping it onto the bed, I turned around and I had no idea how long I stood there before I sprang forward, racing back into the living area. I went to the door, placing my hands on it. Tentatively, I reached down and turned the handle.

The door opened.

I quickly closed it and slowly backed up, waiting for Kieran to return, to realize that he’d left the door unlocked. When he didn’t—when no one came—my hands trembled. And when I realized that no one had locked the door behind me earlier today or even the first night Casteel and I arrived, my arms began to shake.

I wasn’t caged anymore. A willing captive. I just hadn’t noticed that none of the doors had been locked from the outside.

Gods.

Realizing that did something to me. It unlocked the rawest emotion inside me, and it hit me hard. Sinking to the floor, I clasped my hands over my face as tears poured from me. The doors were unlocked. There were no guards, no one to govern me. If I wanted, I could simply walk out and go…well, wherever I wanted. I didn’t have to sneak out or pick a lock. The tears…they were borne of relief, and they were tinged with earlier hurts and older ones that had scarred many years ago. They were weighted with the knowledge of future pain, and they fell from the realization that tonight, when I sat at that table, I had finally shed the veil of the Maiden by defending myself. It wasn’t that I hadn’t done it before. I’d stood up for myself with Casteel and Kieran, and even Alastir, but tonight was different. Because there was no returning to the silence, to that submission. It didn’t matter if I was the neck that turned the head of a kingdom or an outsider in a room full of people who had every right to distrust me. Staying silent was only temporarily easier than shattering the silence, and that realization was painful. It shone a light on all the times I could’ve spoken up—could’ve risked whatever consequences. All of those things fed my tears.

I cried. I cried until my head ached. I cried until there was nothing left in me, and I was just a hollow vessel, and then…then I pulled myself together.

Because I was no longer a captive.

I was no longer the Maiden.

And what I felt for Casteel—what I was only beginning to accept—was something I had to deal with.

What I said tonight at dinner? It was true. All of it. Even that last part was true, wasn’t it? That even if I hadn’t entirely forgiven him for his lies or the deaths he’d caused, I’d accepted them because they were a part of his past—our past—and they didn’t change how I felt, right or wrong. That was what I’d denied for so long.

I loved him.

I was in love with him, even though that love had been built on a foundation of lies. I loved him even though there was so much I didn’t know about him. I loved him even though I knew I was a willing pawn to him.

And this didn’t happen overnight. It shouldn’t come as a shock, because I was already in love with him the moment my heart broke when I learned the truth of who he was. I fell in love with him when he was Hawke, and I kept falling once I learned that he was Casteel. And I knew it wasn’t because he was my first everything. I knew it wasn’t my naivety or lack of experience.

It was because he made me feel seen, and he made me feel alive even when I genuinely wanted to cause physical harm to him. I kept falling when he never once told me not to pick up a sword or bow and instead handed one to me. I fell and fell when I realized that Casteel wore many masks for many reasons. What I felt only grew when I realized that he would, in fact, kill whoever insulted me, no matter how wrong that was. And that love…it entrenched itself deeply when I realized the kind of strength and will he had within him to survive what he had and to still find the pieces of who he used to be.

And the catch in my breath, the shiver and the ache whenever he looked at me, when his eyes were like twin golden flames, whenever he touched me, it went beyond lust. I didn’t need experience to recognize the difference. He didn’t have pieces of me. He had my whole heart, and he had from the moment he allowed me to protect myself, from the moment he stood beside me instead of in front of me.

And that realization was terrifying. Scared me more than a horde of Craven or murderous Ascended ever could. Because I had to deal with what Casteel felt and what he didn’t.

The reason Casteel hadn’t told me about this Gianna was the same reason he hadn’t told me about the Joining or about Spessa’s End. Kieran could be right, and he could be wrong. Casteel may care for me—care for me enough to not want to see undue harm befall me, and Casteel did want me physically, but that didn’t mean we were heartmates. That didn’t mean he loved me. And no amount of pretending would change that or how I felt.

I had to deal.

And I would.

Because my agreement with Casteel remained. I wouldn’t back out because of how I felt or that my feelings were hurt. My brother was more important than that.

I lifted my head, bleary eyes focused on the ancient stone walls. The people of Solis were more important than how I felt, so were all those who called Atlantia home. Casteel’s brother was more important, as were all those names on the walls of the underground chambers.

Casteel and I could change things. We could stop the Ascended, and that was what mattered.

Climbing to my feet, I shakily made my way to the small bathing chamber, grateful that Casteel hadn’t returned while I’d been having a complete breakdown and moment of realization. I splashed away the tears staining my face and then undressed, pulling on the nightgown that could barely be called clothing. The cool material skimmed my breasts and hips, ending just below my rear. Tomorrow, I would question whether or not women actually slept in this…this scrap of silk, but tonight, I was too tired to even be concerned with it. After locking the doors, I took my dagger to the bed, placing in under the pillow. Pulling the blanket up over me, I tried not to think about how everything smelled of Casteel. I closed my aching eyes, and as weary as I was from everything, I immediately drifted into the oblivion of nothing.

It was the bed shifting under unexpected weight that woke me sometime later. Rolling onto my side, I slipped the dagger from under the pillow.

A hand caught my wrist in the shadows of the room, and a voice whispered, “Are you going to stab me in the heart? Again?”