“Are you saying we deserve this?” he asked, green fire flickering along his fingertips. “That this is some sort of fucked-up punishment for all the errors we’ve made?”
“No, Zeph. I’m saying that we need to trust our mate.” I rolled off the bed and stepped into his path, forcing him to stop.
“Don’t.”
I touched him anyway, not afraid of his simmering temper. He could take it out on me however he wanted. We both could use a good sparring session. Or maybe a fuck.
“Look, we’ve already established that she can’t leave him without a fight, and we’ve also established that we don’t have a safe place for her here. The Council and the Elders plan to kill her once she proves unuseful. And from what I understand, Zakkai will track her down even if we manage to rescue her. So why not work with him to protect her while we figure out the larger issue, hmm?”
His jaw flexed as he clenched his teeth. “What makes you think Zakkai isn’t the larger issue?”
“I think he’ll become one eventually,” I admitted. “But the Council and the Elders are more pressing right now.” Case in point, the writhing power dancing up and down my arms. “I’m supposed to ascend a throne riddled with corruption.”
“You’ve known that for years.”
“Not the extent of it,” I replied as my hands drifted down his bare arms. “I’ve been blind to the larger issues, just accepting it all because there’s been no alternative. And now, I have no idea what I’m going to do. I’m partially mated to Aflora. Shade just bit me, too. I still have three ascension trials left, plus the one I’m currently failing. My grandfather wants to postpone my inheritance of the throne as a result, and I think my father is considering it, too. So what do I do, Zeph? Do I run? Do we run? Go hide in a paradigm?”
I shook my head and took a step back to sit on the bed again, my head in my hands.
“I have no idea who I am anymore.” Everything I thought I knew had been turned on its head since Aflora arrived. Part of me hated her for it. A smarter part of me acknowledged that it wasn’t her fault at all. She was j
ust the culminating event that turned my world upside down.
“You’re Prince Kolstov,” Zeph said.
“And what does that mean?” I asked him, my forearms falling to my thighs as I looked up at him through my mess of auburn strands. “We both know I can’t ascend. Not with my links to Aflora and Shade.”
“You think the source will reject you as king?”
“Not the source, no,” I muttered. “The Council. The Elders. All of Midnight Fae kind. They’ll all reject me.” I’d be lucky if they didn’t kill me for this.
And yet, I didn’t regret a moment of it.
“I’ve given up so much for them. My identity. My life. Every moment of every day has been about my future as the king. Yet they put me on trial for the Academy incident, all the while knowing it wasn’t me at all. They never apologized or even acknowledged the oversight. Meanwhile, they were busy attacking the village and framing Zakkai?” I phrased it as a question because we had no proof yet, other than what Zakkai had told Aflora. However, it was an easy accusation to believe given everything else.
“He could be lying,” Zeph pointed out. It’d been his immediate reaction the other night when Aflora told us what Zakkai had said about the village. He also apparently hadn’t left that rock for her in Advanced Conjuring class.
“He could be lying,” I repeated, agreeing with Zeph. “But why would he? What does he get out of it?”
“Aflora’s cooperation,” Zeph replied. “Which seems to be what he wants. Hence, the dreams.”
“Maybe, but he has to know she’ll hate him if she discovers he lied.”
“You assume her hatred would bother him.”
I considered it, frowning. “Wouldn’t it bother you? As her mate?”
“I’m not Zakkai.”
“No, you’re not,” I consented. “But given everything the Council and the Elders have been hiding, I find it reasonably easy to believe that they were behind it.” I also trusted Aflora’s instincts. She hadn’t elaborated on why she believed Zakkai, but I didn’t need her to.
And neither did Zeph.
It was just in his protective nature to question everything and everyone. My Guardian required control, and there was no aspect of this situation that he could own or manage. That was what had him upset.
He resumed his pacing again, his shoulders tense.
Helplessness was not a good look on him. I felt it, too, but I’d grown up in a world where I had no say in my future. Everything had been mapped out for me before I took my first breath. I’d just been walking the path ever since, following each directive to the letter.