Page 102 of To Dance with Death

I wait for his reaction, and yet he just…watches me, inscrutable. And with every second that stretches, so too does the distance between us, a gap that is far from physical but all the more painful.

The words “I love you” fall from my lips. Soft and broken. Pitiful, even.

I don’t expect him to love me back. Even so, I whisper it one more time. “I love you, Anton.”

More shouting echoes from the throne room—cries even—but my eyes can’t seem to leave his.Please.

“Vasalie,” he says, and his voice is so full of pity it tips my tears over the edge. “How can you ask me that when you have yet to be honest with me?” He looks between my eyes as he speaks. “You wish me to trust you, to take your hand in marriage, yet you worked for the very man who wished me dead. You were my brother’sJewel.”

My heart lurches. He found out about Illian. “How—”

But then I think of the way he was when we first arrived in Ansa. In the workshop. He’d been more solemn than I had ever seen him. Angry, almost.

Had Sundar told him? Had someone else recognized me and told him the truth? But then, wouldn’t the curse prevent that? My tenure as Illian’s Jewel was relevant to the Gathering, but it happened far before.

Unless Illian told Anton himself. He would do anything to prevent Anton from getting attached to me, I’m certain.

Shouts splice into the moment, cutting it apart. “Quick! Bring him this way!” someone says.

They’reinthe tunnels.

“Call for the physician! The regent is badly injured—”

Anton scoops me off my feet.

Then he’s marching me in the other direction, away from the voices, winding through the tunnels that lead back into the eastern wing—and I realize he means to return the both of us to the decrepit Lair of Moranya. He means to donothing.

“How could you,” I sob once more—a last desperate plea. “I am offering you everything you lost, and I am offering youmyself.” Everything I have to give.

He doesn’t even pause, the rejection splicing deeper into my heart than even a knife could manage. And it isn’t just me he’s rejecting.

“If not for me, forthem,” I cry. “You don’t have to ever love me. But your people deserve their king. They deserve protection. They need youwiththem!”

But I get no response. Not even a glance.

Hope leaves me, turns to sludge in my throat. Sobs that claw their way up, messy and wet and sluicing over his tunic as he carries me through yet another hidden corridor.

“Leave me,” I rasp through another turn. “If you won’t help me—or the millions you will let suffer—the least you can do is let me go to my friends!” Again I thrash.

“I will do no such thing,” he says, the chapel above ground coming into view.

If the prophecy will come true, this is how it will happen. By hisrefusalto act. Over and over, I try to wriggle free from his hold as he descends the stairs, but he proves just how strong he is—and how small I am in comparison. His large arms, corded with muscle, encompass me with an unyielding grip around both my legs and my shoulders. My vision is tear-streaked. Fatigue presses in like a cold, sick clamor.

Stars filter into my sight—hundreds of them.

Thousands.

My body goes limp.

Chapter Thirty-Four

I come to in my room in Morta’s Lair, the silk of the sheets beneath my fingertips.

It takes me a moment to orient my mind, to remember what last happened.

The memories come quick.

The sunset, gilding the waves of his hair.