And she still believed he wanted Sapphira.
“Where?” she answered sleepily.
“Crolum. Before. Did you go alone?”
“I did.”
“To a kingdom plagued by undying beasts.” Impotent fear roughened his voice.
“They’d already killed everyone. There was nothing left to eat, so they’d abandoned the city, too. There was no threat to me.”
“Unless the spell that changed the first beast in that healer’s square also changed you when you went there.”
“It obviously did not. Stop criticizing me.”
“I’m not criticizing.” Though the harshness of his voice likely sounded as if he was. “I’m admiring you and your courage. Despite the danger, you went.”
She stiffened slightly, as if deciding whether to believe him. Finally she said, “I’m evil and cursed. When you’re the worst of all things, you do not fear much else. So I didn’t need courage.”
“Liar.”
Her glare burned through the dark.
He smiled against her hair. “If you had kissed me at our wedding and left me there, would you have still journeyed to Crolum as queen?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“Probably. I don’t like people.”
“You seem to get along with our warriors.”
She shrugged. “Maybe I get along with people who aren’t related to me—or who aren’t assigned to guard me and keep me locked in chambers that I’d rather not be locked in. Also if they feel they owe me their life, I’m vain enough to enjoy being a hero.”
“I thought you didn’t care what people thought of you.”
“I don’t.” She paused. “But apparently, I’m not opposed to people pledging their loyalty and their lives to me.”
“As I have. I pledge everything to you.”
“Don’t ask the same of me.”
He knew why. “Because you fear loving anyone. Or trusting anyone.”
“It’s not because I’m afraid. It’s because I’m not a fool.”
“Are you not?”
“No.”
“I am.”
She said nothing to that, but moved restlessly before scratching her cheek with their bound hands. He would be sorry when they removed the ribbon at dawn.
Finally she broke the silence again. “What is it like, being the good twin?”
“The good twin?”
“Respected and admired.”
“You think I am the good twin?”
“You clearly are.”
“I’m not.” He began laughing. “I’m violent and vindictive and greedy. On her deathbed, my mother begged me never to kill my brother. She made me vow not to.”
“On her deathbed? But the queen died twenty-five years past.”
“She did.”
“You would have been…five? She made you vow not to kill him at five years of age?”
“Because she knew I was the dangerous, violent twin.”
“So? Dangerous is good when you use it to protect those under your care. And you are everything that is good and kind and brave.”
His roar of laughter shook the whole bed. “No,” he managed to choke out after a minute.
“Yes.” Her insistent reply swelled his heart. “Your mother probably made you say the vow because she knew Tamas would eventually be a worthless king and you’d want to get rid of him, but her tender mother’s heart wanted to spare him.”
“No, it was because she didn’t want me to steal what she believed was rightfully his. You were told that you were the evil twin. I was the expendable one.”
“Expendable?” Outrage raised her voice. “Your brother is the useless one.”
“I’m glad you think so. But I will tell you a secret.” It was not a secret he cared to keep, anyway. “My plan was the same as yours. I wanted a kingdom, but since I’d vowed not to kill my brother, I couldn’t take Gocea. So I planned to take Phaira.”
“As you deserved. By all rights, Sapphira’s hand should have been offered to you instead of to your brother.”
“And after the marriage, I would have stripped your sister and parents of all their power.”
He felt her body jerk in surprise. “But you love her.”
“Love her? She’s as useless as my brother. I spoke all of five words to her at one dinner—and even as I planned to claim her, I wondered if my cock would be too limp to fuck her. Then I saw you in the gallery outside my brother’s quarters. I didn’t know it was you, but I knew something was different. I thought the woman at dinner had worn a vapid mask over her true character, because in that bed, I saw you were cunning and ambitious. We are much the same, my queen.”
“Oh.”
“And I am fool. For you.”
“But…if you are truly like me, then I cannot trust you at all.”
“Not now. But I can be patient.” He kissed her furrowed brow and gathered her close again. “And whether you trust me or not, my wife…you are not alone anymore.”
7
Echo
For a full week, her husband stared at her with intense, burning eyes as if stripping her naked in his mind. At mealtimes, he fed her the choicest bits from his fingertips and then licked where her lips had touched his skin. But he did not kiss her or attempt to fuck her—or even touch her much, aside from when he held her while they slept. And he carried her around at the oddest moments, as if he thought her legs were still stiff and sore. Every time she approached the steps from the lower decks to the upper, he reacted as if she were about to scale a cliff and lifted her over it, instead.