Page 70 of Bound to the Shadow Queen
“And if you had looked,” I forced the words out through gritted teeth. “You still might not haveSeen. Haven’t you said that’s not how it works?”
A sad smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
“We’ll never know, now. What I might have prevented if I had done my Shard-Mother-given duty?” she said from behind her glass of Emberkiss.
“You mean if I had died that day, and the kingdom had continued to prosper?” I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer after all the time I had spent trying to keep my Court together, from the day it had all gone to hells.
She sighed and rested her glass in her lap, staring down as if she could see the liquid smoke curling around the edges of the whiskey.
“I don’t know. She’s never shown me, if the Unseelie would have taken over. If your mother would have saved you, had the day gone differently.” Nevara took a shuddering breath. “I can’t tell if she’s punishing me…or sparing me. Maybe everything would have been easier if I could have been as objective as I was supposed to be. Then and now.”
“So that’s why you stopped telling me things? Because sometimes I die in the end?” I let out a slow breath, not sure if it was relief or frustration. “We’ve both known that was a possibility for a while now.”
It was true. Whatever else I was, I would never willingly let my people be overtaken by the monsters, and the day was coming when even the power I had wrested from the ground itself wouldn’t be enough to stop them.
Nevara shook her head, not to argue, I realized. To deny.
She didn’t want me to die, but that wasn’t what she was afraid to tell me. Hells, how many times had she told me to avoid something because it would lead to my death? She had never been shy about it.
“It’s her you keep seeing.” My voice came out raspier than I meant it to. “Her death.”
Nevara’s silence was answer enough.
Icy dread gripped my chest, raking its fingers over my bones like it might shatter them. I told myself it was just for my kingdom. Just for Winter.
The whiskey swirled in my glass, catching the light, amber folding into shadows and smoke. And I tried, I tried not to think of my wife.
Her crystal-blue eyes boring into mine as she whispered lies. Or the way she felt in my arms, the taste of her tongue. The stubborn tilt of her chin, or her broken body chained to a stone wall.
I downed the rest of my whiskey, relishing the burn as it coated my throat.
Nevara sighed, her fingers tracing the rim of her glass as if it might hold the answers for us both.
“It isn’t that simple,” she said after a moment. “There are so many lines of fate, Draven, and they aren’t as linear as you might expect them to be. I just thought… that I could navigate them. That I could get us where we needed to be without losing any more pieces of our souls. But somewhere along the way, you stopped trusting me.”
That was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. If Nevara had trusted my judgment, she wouldn’t have played so many shards-damned games.
“You stopped trusting me, too,” I told her.
After the battle. After the unspeakable choice I had to make.
She didn’t deny it. “We’ve both made impossible choices, Draven. The stakes are always the kingdom. Winter. Our lives and legacies.”
Her voice thinned. She looked small against the carved bench, as if the tower itself might crush her with all the grief etched into its walls.
I watched her then. Nevara, my Visionary, who saw futures like spiderwebs, who slept in a bed of runes and woke to foreknowledge. She had never known a moment’s peace, not since the day her mother died and the Shard Mother claimed a child for her chosen vessel.
But she didn’t look like she belonged to the Shard Mother now. Right now, she looked older than her years, a female worn raw by loss, who had turned her solitude into armor.
“Is that why you refuse to find a mate?” I asked, carefully.
What sacrifices had she chosen to spare herself, and what to spare me?
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I care about your line, Draven,” she said, “but I would never inflict this on another soul. Not for the Shard Mother, not for Winter, and not for you. My line ends here, but I will stay alive as long as I can to give you what you need from me.”
I nodded, knowing she couldn’t see the movement. Then I took the seat next to her, my elbows resting on my legs as I stared down into my empty glass.
“Not even the Shard Mother?” I asked after a beat.
