Page 110 of Godbound
Ryker looks away, jaw clenching. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Because you refuse to hear it,” I snap. “Because if you do, you’ll have to admit that the brother you’ve been protecting isn’t the man you want him to be.”
He turns away, dragging a hand through his hair again, his breathing uneven. For the first time, I see it, the war inside him. The desperate need to defend Mael battling against a truth he’s spent years refusing to face.
I open my mouth to push him further, to make him finally see what’s been right in front of him all along. “You need to know exactly?—”
“No!” Ryker spins around, his eyes wide, glinting with a sheen of moisture I hadn’t expected. “I can’t bear to hear the details of what happened between you two. I’ve forgiven him. I’ve forgiven you too. But forgetting what I was told, what I imagined, it's not that easy. I’m trying, trying so damn hard, to silence those thoughts. To stop staring at the ceiling every night, terrified of the pictures my mind painted. Soplease, I’m begging you, don’t make it worse. I don’t need to know.”
I stare at him, my mouth still open.
And suddenly, the anger and frustration dissolve, slipping off me like water down stone, leaving only a quiet, aching pity.
After everything I’ve endured, I feel forged, hardened, while he stands before me like a man made of cotton— soft, absorbent, defenseless beneath a sky on the verge of breaking. The truth from me would be the downpour that soaks through him, warping his shape, unraveling what’s left of his resolve until there’s nothing left but a pile of ruined mush.
I close my mouth and blink. What would my truth even change? Would he accept it, believe it?
The tremble in his hand says no. My words would slide off the wall of denial he’s built around Mael, never finding a purchase. And Mael is far too clever to leave behind anything that might seed doubt in Ryker’s mind.
And if I’m being honest… I no longer care to make him see.
I sink back into my chair, my mind is made up. Ryker needs to learn the truth eventually, but not like this. I exhale and shove a strawberry into my mouth as if its sweetness can dull the bitterness rising in my chest.
Ryker steps closer, his voice low, raw. “When I saw those monsters attacking you through Divinity Gazes, I didn’t care about the curse. I didn’t care about the Consul or public opinion. All I could think about was that you were going to die, and I had failed to protect you.”
His hand lifts, hesitating just above my shoulder, his fingers barely a breath away from my skin.
“Touching me won’t decay you,” I say steadily, despite the way the warmth of his presence no longer reaches as deep as it once did. “I’m capable of keeping my magic locked away.”
He exhales, closing his eyes briefly, as though grounding himself. And then, finally, he lets his hand rest against me.
I feel nothing at his touch.
His fingers brush a strand of hair away from my face, and I see the moment his gaze catches on the two red strands that mark my curse.
But there’s no flicker of recognition. No reaction at all. He never even noticed that the second strand appeared.
“I’ve missed you,” he says, his voice heavy with regret. “I should’ve come to you the moment Mael confessed. I should’ve stood up to the Consul and the Church, like a man deserving of you. And I will always blame myself for everything that followed.”
He steps back, slumping into his chair. “I wish I could undo it. To save you. To have you back, not as the Goddess of Decay and Blood’s Champion, but as my future wife. As my best friend.”
These words untangle the last threads of anger. Suddenly, I don’t see the king. I see the boy who climbed the Palace walls just to make me laugh when we were kids. And who's now looking as if he’s been crushed under the weight of his own failures.
There’s shame in his posture, in the way his hands grip his knees too tightly, as though he’s holding himself together. The kind of shame that makes a man look smaller no matter how straight he sits.
But I can tell he’s trying, awkwardly and clumsily, to mend what’s been shattered between us.
Suddenly feeling sad for him, I rise from my chair, steadying my breath, and take a slow step toward him.
“Tell me what I need to do to make you forgive me?” he murmurs, reaching out to take my hand. He guides me down slowly, and I let him numbly.
I kneel before him, his grip firm around mine, as though he’s afraid I might vanish if he lets go. “I’ve dreamed of your face every time I stole a few hours of sleep,” he whispers, lowering his forehead to touch mine.
His arms shift, sliding from my hands to my shoulders, then up to cradle my face. His thumbs brush lightly against my cheeks.
“I was the biggest fool,” he breathes, his voice barely above a whisper. ‘Please, say you forgive me. Please.”
There’s so much pleading in his eyes, so much raw emotion that my chest aches. And yet, for the first time in years, I see something else.
