Page 130 of Moonmarked

“Because you needed saving,” he whispered.

I leaned closer. “And what didyouneed?”

Lyall paused for a good moment. “Nothing, Nilah. I just needed to heal you, make sure you were okay. I was just a boy.”

So why do your words sound so empty?

I closed my eyes again, took in a deep breath, told myself that I was seeing things, that the more I stayed here, the more I was going to look for someone to blame, and maybe I wasn’t even being fair to Lyall. Maybe he really was just trying to win me over or whatever the hell he was aiming for here—it didn’t matter.

“I want to do it,” I said, the words rolling off my tongue with ease. “I want to do the unbinding ceremony tonight.”

This definitely surprised him. He moved back instinctively as if my words had assaulted him. “Why?”

“Because I’m done,” I said. “I want to go home, Lyall. Whether someone will try to get rid of me after or not—I want to be done with it, and I want to go home where I belong.”

He closed his eyes and forced a smile—a bitter one. “Done with it—you speak of our life bond as if it were a nuisance, nothing more.”

“No, it was. It was a lot more,” I said. “You saved my life. I saved yours. It’s time we parted ways.”

For a moment, that smile on his face froze and he just looked at me with unblinking eyes. “You never gave me a chance.”

“I did.”

“You didn’t.”

“Idid.Even after you planned and plotted behind my back, and even after you forced me to run from this palace, I stayed. I came to your games and your balls and I tried to be your friend?—”

But that’s as far as he let me go. “Friend,” he said, clapping his hands a couple of times, the bitter smile turned to laughter now. “It’s just a pretty word for someone you have no other use for, that’s all. Incredible how friendship ends right when convenience does.”

It was like a fist to my gut, and the words were at the tip of my tongue.Rune was your friend, wasn’t he? What use did you have for him?

I kept myself under control, of course. Pissing Lyall off right now wouldn’t be smart. I still needed him to do the unbinding ceremony, and I still needed him to let me go without causing complications that would waste my time. Rune was out there, and I needed to find him.

“Not for me,” I chose to say in the end. “True friendship means the same thing as family to me.”

He leaned closer, looked at my hands on my lap like he was thinking about touching me. Thank God he thought again and kept his hands to himself.

“I don’t want to do the unbinding ceremony, Nilah. I want you to stay. I want you spend time with me, as friends, as whatever you want to call it.” My mouth opened, but he didn’t let me speak. “I thinkthisis where you belong, Nilah. Just the fact that the seer showed you your own self—thiscould be your home, not Earth. Maybe you belong here with me.”

Never.Every instinct in my body was on high alert all of the sudden at the mere idea ofbelonging with Lyall.I couldn’t even tell you why it repulsed me so much, thatthought, but I wanted to start running already, do anything in my power to prove to him and myself and the world that that wasnottrue.

I didn’t belong in this place—nor with Lyall.

I belonged with Rune.

“I can give you everything. This court—this whole realm could be yours. All you have to do is ask, and you will have it. You belonghere, Nilah!” He sounded more desperate with each word.

It cost me to keep my voice composed and my body language from showing him exactly what I was thinking, but I did.

“I don’t, Lyall. I belong with my family. I will be on my way back home when the unbinding is done. That way you don’t have to fear being hurt through me, and I don’t have to fear anybody coming after me to hurt you.”

The last part I said more for my benefit than his. Because if I was no longer tied to the prince, there would be no reason for anyone to come after me, would there? I could search for Rune in peace.

Lyall thought about it for a moment. “But we don’t even knowwhatyou are, Nilah. Surely you can wait for a little longer until we figure it out.”

The blood in my veins turned ice-cold all of a sudden.No, I most definitely don’t want you to figure out that I look like that painting of the very queen Rune was accused of killing when he was a kid…

And that thought made chills run down my spine, too. What were the fucking odds that that seer would know about that painting—and the whole image, too, not the half-torn canvas I’d seen in the Gallery of Time?

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