Page 122 of A Kingdom of Shadows

Sarilyn.

My brothers.

The letter.

I pause, patting myself down, wondering if I'd dropped the letter through the chaos at Dusan's study.

My name comes out of Darius's mouth softly to soothe my nerves.

I look up at him.

Worry and contained anger from before swirl in his eyes.

I can't stop it; my legs collapse.

My hand reaches out behind me as I try to find something to steady myself on but fail, sliding down onto the ground, depleted and lost. Darius is straightening off the hedge, taking immediate steps toward me and not waiting another minute as he lowers to his knees and embraces me. My fingers curl around his shirt, and I close my eyes while he strokes my back, resting his hand on my head as he holds me in a protective cocoon.

"They have to be alive." My voice mingles with the rustling of flowers and the flickering of dried-out leaves inside the maze. I refuse to believe in rumors from the king, much less Thallan. And yes, I am certain that I wanted Darius to inflict even further pain on him. But I dared not dream of the consequences that would fall on him.

On us.

On our future.

"They are," Darius says with conviction cupping my face and making me look at him. He traces the pad of his thumb along my cheeks as I stare into his amber-golden eyes. They're almost hues of brown now in the shadows of the maze. "Dusan's heart. It was beating too fast while you read the letter."

All tears seize from my eyes. He'd tried listening to Dusan's heartbeat. "What—"

"I know you don't trust the king. Neither do I. In a world like this, not even trust can be earned, and if he had a history with Sarilyn, who is to say it is not finished?"

"Do you... do you think he's working with her?"

It wouldn't make sense; she cursed him, and the king has never affiliated himself with Emberwell since then.

Darius shakes his head. "Someone else, perhaps." He sighs. "Listen, Goldie, when I was assisting him during Golrai's death, he didn't care who had killed her. In fact, he'd already assumed the gender of who'd murdered her was a male before I could say anything."

The first person that comes to mind is Thallan when I spoke to him that night. He denied all my allegations, threatened me with Aeron and Arlayna, and outed my feelings toward Darius. It indeed could have been him, but it also seems too easy if it was.

"What if she knew something grave?"

Darius thinks about it for one moment. "She was killed inside this maze," he says. "It was clear she was trying to hide from someone."

Too much around us is dangerous.

It's been months since I last saw my brothers and friends. They have to be safe, and right now, all I'm clinging onto is Darius's words that the king might have lied.

"We need the last stone." I stare to the side where the statue of an Elven man riding a horse in armor stands. Looking back at Darius, I get up and mean each word I say next. "And once we have it, we'll leave this land behind. We will get our friends and family and take back what is rightfully yours."

He's kneeled before me, and a smirk I'd regard as full of pride fills his lips. He gets up slowly. One leg then the other. His chest lines with my forehead, and I have to lift my chin to face him.

My breathing stills as his fingers grace my collarbone. One, two, hardly a third second as he lowers them and stops by the coin pendant around my neck.

He smiles and picks it between his thumb and forefinger. "You truly want me to be king?"

I rest both my hands over his. "You are the last remaining Rivernorth," I say. "For Emberwell, you are already king, Darius."

His gaze fixes on my eyes with raw and unfiltered intensity, and as we stand here in the stillness, he whispers to me, "Goldie... marry me."

My eyes widen though my heart thumps and ricochets inside my chest with absolute happiness. But... I know the depths of everything we will face are much grander.

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