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Clea tried to restrain her breath, hoping he wouldn’t acknowledge her pain and leave her be.
Instead, the arm she’d clutched so tightly lifted as his hand moved along her chin. He turned her face toward him as he leaned over her and said, “Your illness has made you a rarity, the kind that doesn’t survive, but a rarity nonetheless. That is the good news.”
She swallowed, searching his face, completely still now as she watched the fire in his eyes, felt the warmth in his touch grow. A prickling sensation swam through her body, electrifying a once deep and pervasive numbness with an energy that was not her own. The energy seemed to capture every inch of her illness, following it through her muscles, organs, and bones.
“The bad news,” he added, and leaned forward as he braced his hand under her head, whispering into her ear, “is that this is going to hurt tremendously.”
He yanked his hand back from her abdomen.
She gasped in a silent scream as an icy, painful lightning broke through her body and her muscles seized and then collapsedinside her. He caught her back against the altar so that she didn’t hit her head, and she struggled to breath, the world dizzying around her.
Her head spun and she waited to die, knowing in that moment, he’d killed her.
Chapter 19
Breath
HER BODY FELT numb, sinking away from her in a dark coldness until the slightest warmth returned, tingling into her feet, and then the rest of her skin.
She gasped for a breath as sensation returned in full, pulling herself up to her palms as she regained complete consciousness. Her body returned with a strange and resounding fullness. She felt lighter and yet more whole, her heart starting to race as she scanned herself, miraculously freed from illness. The medallion had been tied back around her neck but she felt immune to its weight.
She sat up to see Ryson leaning back against the altar, looking over his shoulder and turning as she sat up.
“You,” she started, but didn’t know what to say. Awe and anger bubbled to the surface, Clea surprised to find that her first urge was to slap him.
He caught her hand in the air, turning it down as he faced her.
“I thought you killed me!” she whispered harshly, angry at his games and somehow feeling that the argument was private enough that she had to whisper.
She prepared to get off the altar, swinging her legs over the edge, but he braced his hands on either side of her, locking hiseyes with hers as he said with a smile, “I considered it.”
She swallowed tightly, sensing a kernel of truth in the statement.
“You promised not to lie,” she replied, putting his words to the test.
His brows furrowed slightly as he tilted his head in honest recollection and then backed away with a laugh. “By cien, you’re right. I did say that, didn’t I? And I don’t break my promises.” He looked at his hands as if just remembering that fact about himself. “Why did I make that awful oath such a necessary part of my life?” He seemed honestly horrified to remember such a fact about himself.
Clea was so caught off guard by his genuine bewilderment that she startled when he whipped back toward her, locking his hands back in place on either side of her before asserting his previous statement, “I considered it.”
So he was being honest after all?
Clea swallowed, eyes narrowing.
“You actually are a little insane,” she said, but couldn’t hide how her hand still marveled over the healed skin on her chest. She wasn’t even sure she was pointing out a flaw as much as she was finally coming to the conclusion herself.
“There is the door,” he said, extending an arm out to his right gracefully.
She followed the gesture to confirm that there was, in fact, no door, and wondered if he realized that. Maybe the invitation to leave was just as existent as the door.
Ryson smiled playfully. “I’m only insane when I’m inexceptionally good spirits, Princess,” he said as he lowered his hand back to the side of the altar, closing her in again.
She continued watching the space on the wall and the imaginary door as he spoke.
She really should leave.
“I am aware, and it seems you are too, that force is not power. As such, you’ve brought to my attention an…imbalance of power in my own life. It is perhaps as lacking as the imbalance in yours. I think we might be quite capable of helping each other.” He tipped her chin up and toward him with a single, darkened finger, returning her focus to his face.
She pushed his hand away and it returned to its position by her side.
