A s soon as I knew Kallias was safe, that a healer was tending to him and a whole platoon of guards were watching over him, I left. I knew he would only send me away again once he had the strength to do so. Unless of course he decided to kill me.
I saved him, but somehow, I’m as miserable as ever.
Perhaps Zervas was right. It is far better to know he was mine before death than to know he will go on to be with someone else.
I plump my pillow before adjusting it below my chest, wrapping my arms around it, and letting my chin sink onto the edge of the downy softness.
Rhoda is letting me stay at her estate for as long as I wish. She’s away with Galen, staying at some country inn, far, far away from gossip and anyone who knows them.
I try not to be bitter about the romantic getaway they’re having. How can I be so jealous when I have a glorious duchess’s estate to stay in?
Alone. Cast aside.
Threatened with death by the man I love.
Loved.
I cannot still care for him after what he’s done. It’s been a week since he threw me out of the palace. Since the duel in the sitting room. A week of sleeping in dreadfully late each morning, or afternoon, really. A week of selling off the trinkets Kallias gave me to pad my purse. A week of walking down the vast halls of this estate, touring the grounds (yet avoiding the gardens). I go for a horse ride each afternoon. Enjoy delicious dishes prepared by Rhoda’s exquisite cook. And try to decide what the next step is for me.
I don’t need to marry anymore. I have all the money I could need and a free place to stay indefinitely.
I have nothing to scheme for. And I find I don’t have a taste for men at the moment.
Hestia has written to me, asking me if she might visit. She also sent a wedding invitation.
I don’t know if I can stand the sight of my friends and their happiness right now.
What I need is to feel in control. Perhaps I’ll purchase my own estate. Order my own servants about. That should make me happy.
I ring for a maid to help me dress and fix my hair. Then I let myself into Rhoda’s study, where I sit before a desk. I’ll inquire after any land for sale. Or perhaps I’ll see if Vasco’s estate is up for grabs. He lost it along with his title when he was sentenced.
After some time, a letter arrives from my sister. She pleads Father’s case, telling me how desperately he wishes me to come home. She apologizes for being away from me so long.
If only I’d been with you to set an example. Perhaps you might not be alone and without any prospects. Would you like to come stay with me and the duke for a time? Of course, you can’t carry on as you have while you’re here.
You were so young when Mother died, and as
your older sister I should have taken better care of you. Father and I certainly don’t blame you for turning into a trollop. How else were you to entertain yourself while I was at parties and balls?
“I’m not a trollop,” I announce to the empty room. “I’m a sexually empowered woman, and there is nothing wrong with that.”
How dare she try to argue morality with me. Through a letter. And how could Father go to her to convince me to come home? He only wants a bride-price for me. Without me, he’s left figuring out how to save his estate alone.
Good, I think. It’s his problem to deal with. Not mine. He never should have tried to use me. I’m worth so much more than that. I wish he would have treated me so.
I turn back to the letter I’m composing, when the handle at the door catches.
“I’d prefer not to be disturbed with any more correspondences,” I say without looking up to the servant. For good measure, I tear my sister’s note to pieces before tossing the paper to the floor for someone else to clean up.
“Will you permit a visitor, then?”
I stand abruptly, turning at the sound of the voice that has come to be sweeter to me than music.
“I’m afraid I bullied the servants into letting me enter without being announced,” Kallias says. “I worried you’d order them to send me away before I had a chance to see you.”
He has a few yellow bruises on his face that are still fading. Though his eye and lip are no longer swollen, a few lines of scabs cover his cheeks and brow. But he’s alive and well.
“You didn’t heal yourself. With your shadows. I’ll leave. Then you can—”
“I wish to heal from these the long way. I’ve earned the pain that comes with them.”
Silence fills Rhoda’s study. When I can’t take it anymore, I ask him, “Did you change your mind?”
He looks somewhat puzzled by the question. “Yes, of course.”
I nod and let my eyes trail along the floor. “How is it to happen, then?”
He’s silent for a moment. “I thought we’d take the carriage.” “And then?”
The quiet stretches out so long that I look up. “Well?” I snap. “How am I to die? Am I to be hanged? Drawn and quartered? Are you going to push me off a cliff? Strangle me with your bare hands? What’s it to be, Kallias?” And then, remembering what he said before, I amend, “I mean, what’s it to be, Your Majesty?” Perhaps if I’m civil now it will be a quick death.
A look of horror crosses his features before he removes the space between us. He falls to his knees before me, taking my hands in his bare ones. His thumb brushes over the ring on my finger. His ring. Which I hadn’t brought myself to remove yet. He stares at it for a moment before saying, “You’ve misunderstood. When I said I changed my mind, I meant about sending you away. About destroying our life together.”
I go so still; I think my heart might stop beating.
“You could have let me die,” he says. “You could have let Leandros
—I mean, Xanthos—kill me and then ruled as queen with him. But you didn’t. You killed him. You killed for me.
“But I knew before then. I was hurt, yes, but I was going to come back for you right before Xanthos approached me. I was in my mother’s sitting room, because I tried to imagine a future where that room wouldn’t be yours, and I couldn’t.”
He rises then, keeping my hands clasped in his. “I was scared. I was so scared to trust anyone, and I hurt you as a result. I said things I shouldn’t have. And I’m so unbelievably sorry, Alessandra.”
Before I can get in a word, he’s jerking his hands away and struggling to reach for something in the pocket of his jacket.
In an unusual bit of clumsiness, he drops a letter onto the floor and scoops down to retrieve it. “You never read this. I started it right after the night I read Orrin’s letter to you. I realized that words can be so hard to find when spoken aloud in the moment. But writing? It gives me the time to articulate just what I feel. I was too much of a coward to read it to you before. But I’m going to now.
“My Alessandra,
“All the poets in all the world could write odes to your beauty. You are lovely, stunningly beautiful. Even a fool could see it.
“But that is not what drew me to you. It was your eyes. It was the way you didn’t look at me that made me realize you are special. You didn’t look at me like I was a king, someone to be respected and worshipped. You looked on me as a man. A man who says foolish things and makes terrible decisions. You made me remember what it is to be human.
“I’d forgotten. Having spent a full year with no one to touch, no one to talk to—it was you who reminded me what it is to live.
“Your eyes spoke of a mind that loves to tease and loves to win. But they also showed me your heart, one that could be so reserved but ready to love if I could only earn it.
“I haven’t earned it. I will never earn it. I could spend a million years trying to worship you, and I still wouldn’t be worthy of you.
“But I’m desperate for you all the same. And though I will not have millennia to live, I want to give however many years I have left to you. Because I love you. I love the woman who saved me. And though she doesn’t need me, I want her. Fiercely.
“All the time in the world is worth nothing if I don’t get to spend it with you.
“Forever yours, Kallias.”
When done reading, Kallias folds the letter back up methodically, taking his time, scared to look up, I think.
“Why did it take you so long to come see me?” I ask, keeping the emotion from my voice.
He shrugs and laughs uncomfortably. “I was a mess. I thought I might have a better chance of you taking me back if my face weren’t all beat up.”
I let a hand slide against one cheek, resting my palm there. “I couldn’t care less how your face looks.”
I feel the pull of muscle as his lips twitch. “No?”
“I do like it when it’s healthy and beautiful, but it is not why I love you.”
His breath hitches as he says, “The money and power help, too.”
“It is what originally caught my interest, but I lose interest in everything sooner or later. Everything save you. Because in you, I found my match. In you, I found my equal.”
Kallias, my Shadow King, grabs me, pulls me into his arms. “I love you, Alessandra. What can I say to make you forgive me and take me back?”
“Words only mean so much. Actions speak far louder, don’t you think?”
“I do.”
He lowers his head, brushes my lips with his.
And we start our new life together. Never to be alone again.
