Page 92 of Stars May Burn

By the kingdoms, I’d made her cry.

The familiar self-hatred welled up from inside me, thick and clogging and dark.

I shifted my stance and wondered if breaking the door to let myself in would be appropriate. Probably not. She’d locked the door. She wanted space from me. The knowledge hurt, but I could respect it.

I sighed and ran my hands through my hair. The glass wasn’t thick. She could probably still hear me. “Sophie?”

She stilled but didn’t turn.

“When you’re ready to talk, I’ll listen.”

She didn’t turn, and I felt like a fool who didn’t know the right words to say.

“Sophie, I don’t protect you because you’re fragile. I protect you because you’re worth more to me than anything else. I already know that you’re strong.”

Her shoulders started to shake even harder. I rubbed my lips and waited, hoping she would turn and face me, shout at me, be angry. Anything. But she didn’t move.

I waited half an hour in silence, but she didn’t turn, the glass an endless invisible wall between us.

I couldn’t live like this. I had to fix our marriage, whether that was selfish or not. I wanted us to be happy together because that’s what she had wanted. And to not cause her pain, I couldn’t die in a pointlessly reckless campaign. I couldn’t play along with the king and Lord Lyrason until one of them succeeded in getting me killed.

I had to live for her.

Determination stirred in me as I turned my back on Sophie to return to my rooms. She hated weakness. I could see that now. And I had made her feel weak when she needed to be strong. Next time, I would help prove how strong she was to her family. But first, I would find the words to tell her how I truly felt because she had assumed wrong. I didn’t pity her. I admired her.

Then I had to stop being weak, so I could create a future for us and protect her. This was finally something I could fight for without bitterness. I wanted to live, and I wanted to be free of all this darkness. Sophie deserved that and so much more, and I would give her everything.

SOPHIE

Iused my glass pipette to carefully drip the distilled pinkseed into the small glass cylinder before stopping it with the rubber bung. I labeled it and placed it in the velvet case next to the vials of yellowmoss and birdsfoot. Below each was a wide hollow needle with a feathered end that could draw the sedatives out and be shot down the bamboo pipe. I had made them far more concentrated than before and hoped Callum would take care when loading them into with his new device that would shoot the darts at the soulless. I didn’t want him to inject himself by mistake. Even a drop in a cut would likely knock him out, and potentially, do something even worse.

I was proud of my work, the positive feeling strangely foreign after a week of feeling hopeless. I wondered if Kasten would be impressed.

My mood lowered as my thoughts returned to Kasten. Yesterday, I had finally built up the courage to show George I was too strong to be forced to play their games, and Kasten had come and ruined the image. It had taken so much strength for me to be in that room, and it had all been for nothing.

My anger against Kasten had died, but I didn’t know how to feel around him now; whether to be grateful he had married me when the alternative would have been far worse or annoyed or simply…small. He had achieved and fought for so much—a true hero of Fenland—and he had married me out of pity. I felt too inferior and uncertain to feel comfortable around him. Not to mention that the longer I was around him, the more my feelings for him grew.

It was getting late, so I closed the case and cradled it carefully, ready to bring it to Callum in the east wing. Meena trailed behind me.

As we reached the third floor, Meena gave me a short bow. “I’m only supposed to enter Callum’s work area when necessary, so I’ll wait here for you.”

I hesitated in surprise, then let myself in through the unlocked door. Callum had to be inside already; he never left the door unlocked. It hadn’t occurred to me that the goings on in this room were secretive to many of the residents in Kasomere, not just me.

At first, the room appeared empty; beams of dying sunlight cut from the windows to the desks, shining crimson on all the haphazard objects lying across them. The fireplace was barren. I wondered if Callum had left the room unlocked after all.

A noise caught my attention, and I walked to the center of the room, curious. To one side, a whole section of wall was angled inward, revealing the entrance to another room. A secret room.

I set the velvet case on the desk before walking slowly toward the concealed entrance. “Callum?”

Low voices sounded. I cleared the remaining distance before they could stop me and slipped through the gap in the wall.

Callum stopped a few feet away, one of his hands outstretched as if he’d been hurrying to reach me. “Sophie! I didn’t hear you come in.” He grinned and folded his arms. “Well, now that you’re here, you might as well join us, don’t you think, Kasten?”

My heart stumbled. I looked over Callum’s shoulder and saw Kasten glaring at his friend, his arms folded, and his expression displeased. It looked like he hadn’t intended for me to see this room. Well, I hadn’t intended to see him yet after yesterday. My thoughts were too jumbled to explain my anger.

I licked my lips. “I can leave if…”

Kasten’s narrow eyes moved from Callum to me and softened. “Good evening, Sophie.”

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