Page 45 of This Shattered Star

“You will all be escorted back to your rooms. Rest will be needed, I’m sure.” With a flick of Maverick’s wrist, a handful of guards appeared to lead us back to the tower.

A frantic search for Gideon proved unfruitful. Of course, Diana would do her best to keep him from any task that would allow him to come near me.

And if it wasn’t him, I didn’t need any of them. Turning on my heel, I made to traverse the long walk across the Dome.

“Not you, Eloise.” My muscles locked tightly on themselves. “You are to come with me.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“That’s a nice blade,” Maverick commented in greeting as we stepped into his private study.

For the first time in years, the familiar currant-colored walls etched with gold brought me no comfort at all. The number of hours I’d spent in this study almost rivaled the quantity I’d spent training with Gideon.

The ghost of a girl that had hidden behind her mother’s skirts the first time she’d crossed the mahogany threshold peered at me from the shadows, her wariness and curiosity tickling the back of my mind like particles of dust floating in a forgotten room worn with age, its once loved and overused components now covered with heavy white sheets. Never to be unveiled again.

That girl had died with her parents. And I stood in her wake, a damaged and imperfect replica.

I remembered how angry at the world I’d been, only three years ago, seated on the loveseat facing a hearth whose fire never died. Seeking comfort from the only person other than Gideon who deigned look at me without disdain or hatred. I remembered how surprised I’d been when he’d asked to justtalk,blaming the request on a supposedly horrible day and the need for a change of company that wasn’t a weaseling member of court trying to further their agenda. Someonereal,he’d said. He’d looked disheveled—frustrated. Slumped against his chair with a haggard look in his eyes that almost made him seem… lonely.

Back then, we rarely crossed paths at all, save for the rare summons where he’d use his magic to search for signs of change in my curse. Which was what I’d believed he’d wanted. But that night, I’d just come back from crossing out another name. My soul was heavy. Tired.

And so I talked. I talked to the king longer than I’d talked to anyone in a very long time. And it had felt nice to feel listened to, for once.

It had changed everything.

He indulged me with stories he claimed no one else knew of. Gave me bits and pieces of him while I fought to hold my own soul together.

Grand tales of gruesome battles, accompanied by tales of love I only dreamed of having myself one day, even if he warned me against it.Love is poison to the heart, he claimed.Sharper than any blade.

A habit that stuck. I kept returning. He kept inviting.

Sometimes, we sat for hours in silence, broken only by the scratching of his pen, or the flipping of a page while I occupied myself by the fire with a book I’d borrowed from the library shortly beforehand.

And now I’d returned, just as angry and full of hatred towards the world. Except this time I’d honed that anger into a weapon. One I would use to cleave my way to breaking my curse.

“You bring me here so casually, like you haven’t summoned me to my death. Like it means nothing.” Boots squeaking on sleek black marble, I stomped past him over to his desk, a gargantuan slab of mahogany likely cut from the same tree used to build the archway lining the entrance. It remained clear of paperwork, neat save for a pen that lay discarded on its surface. My limp had worsened, but the bleeding had stopped, which meant I could deal with it later. The pain was reduced to asteady, aching throb. “You didn’t evenhelpme out there, for stars’ sake. You would have let Kodhan drop me.”

“The hilt is exquisite. It’s Jareth’s son’s, is it not?”

I’d wiped it clean on one of his guard’s capes just to spite him. Anyone else’s head would’ve rolled. But mine remained snug atop my shoulders.

“Are you listening to me?” I nearly shouted. I toed our thin line. But I didn’t care, my anger too potent for caution to take hold.

Maverick sighed, finally taking his eyes off Kodhan’s dagger.

“Get out,” he ordered the guards who’d brought me up from the Dome. Only when the heavy door thumped closed behind them did Maverick speak again. “I heard every single word, Eloise. I always listen.”

I knew he did.Damn him.I sighed heavily, wiping a hand over my sweaty brow. “Then tell me why you reallyforced me into the Starlight Trials. No false niceties or cryptic words.Please. You knew I would die if it weren’t for the fact that I had help from my allies.I do not belong here!”

The doors were closed. No prying eyes. The truth could hide no longer. And the thrill of surviving Strength did nothing to smother my existing outrage.

I knew very well that this was likely my last chance to hear it.

He crossed the room in only a few strides, and with a feather-light touch, brushed his thumb across my cheek. Catching the stray tear that had fallen.

His skin was so cold I almost feared the moisture left on my cheek would turn to frost. But it was a cold I’d learned to appreciate. A bitter chill sometimes proved far better than numbing emptiness.

The mask he so carefully maintained fractured for a moment, fatigue flashing behind his dark eyes. But he ushered it away asquickly as it came. He hadn’t been resting. Or was it the toll he paid for conducting the trials with so much magic?