Page 86 of The Kingdom Cursed By Iron

The door to the adjoining room clicks softly open.

“You should warn a man before you go making indecent noises like that.”

I open my eyes to see Ruskin sitting across from me, draped in a chair and watching me intently.

“Pervert,” I throw back, but I sink deeper into the water without making any move to cover myself, finding I really don’t care what he sees. Only a night ago we were wrapped up in each other in ways far more intimate than this. It feels like it happened a million years ago—and my decision this morning to take a step back, too. So much has happened.

My drooping eyelids spring open. I’m so wrung out from the trial I’d forgotten what I told Ruskin about my true name. Now I look over at him, feeling on edge, wondering how he’ll react. Frustratingly, he’s looking completely calm, and not at all like someone who just found out about their mystical soulmate.

“So, I guess you have some questions,” I say.

“Just a few,” he replies, the brightness of his eyes telling me he’s holding back some emotion, even if I can’t tell what it is yet.

“Go ahead,” I say, trying to match his nonchalant tone. I drag my hands through the water, watching the ripples form in their wake.

“You have a true name?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

I keep my eyes on the water.

“I found out when I went home. Through a conversation with an old friend, I learned that my mother took me to a changeling when I was a baby, and when I visited the changeling myself, she told me how she made the discovery. I suppose it’s connected to my magic somehow.”

I look up, watching carefully for his reaction. I know he can’t talk about my mother, but his silence now is as difficult for me to swallow as ever.

“And when did you begin to suspect, about us being naminai?”

I’ve never said it aloud. Hearing it now, acknowledged by him, holds a strange kind of power. Us, linked, not just by circumstance but by fate itself. It whispers to me of tantalizing possibilities—the idea of belonging to Ruskin completely, but also him being mine in the same way. A love bound not by what we can do for each other, or even who we are, but one that is tied to our very souls. It would mean total surrender to each other, a partnership that couldn’t be broken by the petty forces of this realm. God, it’s tempting, and I take a moment to digest it before I answer.

“I knew something was strange the moment I learned what my true name is. Our names…there’s a pattern to them.”

“An alignment,” Ruskin says.

“Yes. I didn’t know what it meant, so I asked Destan a few weeks ago. He didn’t realize I was asking for myself, but he told me about naminai. It seemed to fit, but I couldn’t be sure. Last night, though, when my magic surged…”

“You knew for certain,” he says.

“I could tell it was your power, not mine, and Destan had told me that was something naminai can do. So yes, that’s when I knew for sure.”

He leans further back in the chair, looking thoughtful, and I wonder if he’s piecing it all together: The magic in the tent, the way I distanced myself the next day, and my last-minute confession, just a few hours ago. I nibble my lip, not sure what he’ll do or say next.

He rises, crossing the room and kneeling beside the bathtub, where he pulls my face to his. The kiss is perfect, breathtaking. He gently pushes my mouth open, worshiping the inside of it with his tongue. The edge of hunger is still there, as it always is with us—that irresistible draw of wild desire—but there’s more too. He kisses me like he wants to keep doing it forever, and in that moment, I feel the same. This is where I’m meant to be, in his hands, under his touch. He makes it feel like coming home.

He strokes my face as he pulls back and I open my eyes, breathless.

“This is it now,” he says. “Everything we needed; it’s just fallen into place.”

I sit there dazed for a few seconds. Then the doubt creeps in.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

He runs his thumb over my lips. I burn under the intensity of his gaze.

“Naminai, Ella. It’s fate. We’re meant to be together, which means nothing else matters. We can trust each other now. There’s no need for any more obstacles between us.”

The hope in his voice, the joy, causes me physical pain. I free my face from his hand, curling in on myself, bringing my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around them, staring down into the water.

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