Page 71 of Heir Of Sun And Moon
“Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” The severity of Flynn’s snarled words startles me, my fingers gripping the fabric of his shirt even more tightly.
“Youdaretalk to your king like that?” the guard shouts, his teeth bared in a menacing half smile.
“He is not my king.” Flynn’s answering growl threatens the space separating us from them. His sword lifts higher as he draws his right leg back in a fighting stance that I notice is different from the guard posed across from us. King Dolian’s eyes are calculating as he studies Flynn. My own gaze is drawn to the glints of gold on the bridge behind them. Row after row of King’s Guardsmen descend from the castle. They near a small staircase that connects the bridge to the grasses below. There are so many of them that my breath hitches in my throat, pure fear making my hair stand on end.
“You are free to go— Flynn, was it?” King Dolian asks, taking a step forward and lowering his sword. The guard standing next to him looks over from the corner of his eye and matches the king’s step until he’s next to him again. “I give you your freedom, and in exchange, you leave Rhea here.”
Flynn laughs, the sound rough and menacing and so godsdamndeep. “How about instead, I cut your head off?”
The king takes another step forward, his eyes gleaming with rage. Behind him, the new batch of King’s Guardsmen begin to pour off of the steps, like molten metal leaking onto the earth below.
“Flynn,” I whisper, tugging on his shirt to make sure he sees what I’m seeing. The king is stalling, and we can‘t wait here any longer.Where is Bella?Flynn lowers his sword and steps back so that he is in line with me.
A look of triumph twists the king’s features as he moves another step closer to us and extends his hand out in front of him. “Do you see, Rhea? No one cares about you as I do. No one else can make you a queen as I can. That’s all I have ever wanted for you,” he says, reaching his hand out farther. “To be safe, by my side. As mine. I do not even care that you possess the very magic that I would kill others for having.”
“I am notyourqueen,” I shout, my hands balling into fists at my side. That darkness inside of me sings in approval as iciness coats my veins, my skin, mysoul.“Not today. Not tomorrow.Not ever.”
King Dolian’s eyes narrow as his body tenses, his arm dropping back down to his side. He watches as Flynn intertwines his fingers with mine, giving them a reassuring squeeze from where he stands next to me. Not in front of me, but beside me.
“I see,” my uncle says, his gaze lingering on our joined hands. Those hazel eyes flick back up to mine, intense anger swimming in their depths. “This is your destiny, Rhea. You cannot escape it. You cannot escape me. You may run and hide, but I will always find you. And when I do, I will make sure you never leave again.”
“You will die before you ever get anywhere near her,” Flynn assures before tugging my hand and leading us in a run to the woods.
The trees are pitch black, their outline somehow darker than the landscape around them. The moon lights a path for us as we run through the flowers, a small part of me hating that such beauty will be trampled over and destroyed because of me. Flynn tugs my hand hard, willing me to push my body to keep up with his. Movement draws my attention to my right, and I see a bundle of white fur and pointed ears keeping pace with us as we sprint to reach the safety of the trees.Bella.I nearly scream with relief.
I hear shouting behind us, and so many sets of large booted feet are pounding into the earth that I can feel the rattling of it under my own. I glance one last time over my shoulder as we near the edge of the treeline. The king isn’t chasing us like I expected. He stands eerily still, his sword pointing down at the ground by his side. He’s too far away to make out the expression on his face, but his posture is relaxed, and that sends a chill through me. His trusted guard chases after us, and I wonder where the other remaining two I saw as I was healing Flynn are—assuming that Flynnincapacitatedthe fourth and Xander is still tied up. Perhaps they were busy trying to capture Bella before she managed to escape them.
My final view is that of my tower. The gray stone looming high into the sky comes to a pointed tip as it glows under the starlight. I stare at it for a few seconds, marveling at the fact that I’ll never see the inside of it again. How many times had I looked out onto this land from the balcony and imagined dragging my hands along the wildflower petals? How many times had I seen the forest in the distance and wondered what might lay beyond it? I suppose it is only fitting that the king would ruin my first experience outside of that prison.
Turning back forward, my feet move faster, my free arm pumping by my side as I grip onto Flynn’s hand with my other. The scent of the trees begins to roll towards us, tugging on my brain in familiarity. I breathe it in deeply, my chest heaving with the effort of running. I do not think I could have kept up with Flynn in any capacity if Alexi had not made me exercise. Even now, my lungs and legs burn with exertion. About ten feet separate us from the forest, the trees so thickly woven together at the top that no light from the moon and stars pierces through their canopies.
Something whizzes by my head, and Flynn jerks me to him quickly. “Shit,” he curses as we finally reach the forest and cut in between the trees.
“What was that?” I gasp, stumbling while we run in near darkness. I keep tripping on roots, but Flynn somehow keeps me from hitting the ground. I can hear Bella’s panting breaths on my other side, and relief washes over me that we made it. That we are all here together.
“An arrow. They shot an arrow at us.” He slows our pace down slightly. I can still hear the footfalls of the guards behind us as they also enter the forest, their armor and weaponry clanging together with their movements. Flynn somehow navigates through the near pitch black, until a small pocket of moonlight comes into view ahead.
“How do you know where to go?” I whisper, afraid to let go of his hand for fear I’ll fall into the abyss of darkness and be lost forever in the woods.
“I’ve made this journey a few times, so I know the general direction we need to go in,” he huffs while keeping his voice low. “Though I usually don’t leave in the middle of the night when it’s this dark and I normally enter the forest near the capital.” There’s a hint of uncertainty in his voice that puts me on edge. It feels like we keep to our jogging pace for hours. My back is drenched in sweat, and my feet feel swollen and tight in my boots.
“Flynn, I need a break,” I admit from where he’s practically dragging me behind him. Even Bella’s panting is loud next to me from the pace we’ve kept. Without another word, he brings us to a large tree, the outline of the trunk against the black night barely visible as he guides me to sit on one of the hard, exposed roots. Bella flops down next to me, laying on her side as she breathes heavily. Flynn stays standing, his sword drawn as he surveys the area around us.
The forest is quiet, the voices and banging of the metal armor lost a ways back as we ran. I lean my head back against the bark of the tree, closing my eyes briefly. But when I do, all I can see is Flynn’s blood pooling around him in that field. Flashes of the night Alexi died get interwoven with the thought, a reminder that I almost lost Flynn too. My eyes open and go straight to him.He’s here, and he’s whole.Questions that I know we don’t have time to answer right now push against my lips as I watch him.
“I have magic.” My voice is a tiny whisper, both out of fear of the guards that may still be coming and out of insecurity that Flynn may be upset. I don’t know why I say it. He obviously knows the truth of those words by this point without me having to speak them.
“You do,” he acknowledges with equal softness. Prickling awareness causes goosebumps to break out over my skin as I sense his gaze on me.
“Are you upset with me? For hiding it?” I still feel it was the right thing to do. The less people that know about me having magic, the safer I am, but I can’t help but feel nervous that he won’t feel the same way. That he’ll wonder if I didn’t trust him with this secret. I suppose that, in a way, I didn’t. At least, not when I thought he had the magic of the blood oath binding him to the king. I hear—more than see—him take a step to me and lower down to one knee. Fallen leaves from the surrounding trees crinkle under his boots, the smell of the decayed foliage—as well as something more earthy—stirring up from the motion.
“No, I am not upset,” he says firmly, his voice low. His fingers gently touch the back of my hand, letting me know that he is there before they slowly travel up my arm and shoulder. I shiver as he trails them to my neck until he cups the side of my face entirely. A breath shudders from me under his touch, my shoulders relaxing vaguely from the invisible weight of worry that was sitting on them. We’re not out of the woods yet, literally, but knowing that I’m here with him—that we’re here together—settles me. His thumb caresses my cheek, and he whispers, “I understand why you wouldn’t have told me. How long have you known you’ve had magic?”
My hand follows the line of his arm up to his shoulder, taking my time to feel the warm skin on his neck. “Since I was seventeen. I accidentally used it to save Bella from dying. I didn’t know that I had it before then.” I hear him take a deep breath, but he stays still as I bring my other hand to his face. “Thank you,” I say, moving myself closer to him at that achingly slow pace he always uses with me. Giving him time to move away if this isn’t what he wants. It’s not the right time—here in the forest while we run from the King’s Guard—but the fact that I nearly lost him has me feeling desperate. Desperate for his touch, for his safety, just forhim.
He moves willingly with my hands as I pull him to me steadily until our noses brush. “For what?” he asks, his breath an airy brush against my lips.
“For not being upset with me.” I slide one hand up to his hair where I know a few of the strands will be hanging over his forehead. My fingers push them back, but the strands immediately flop back in place. I don’t know why I love that so much, why his hair has always been this irresistible part of him that I’ve yearned to touch and run my fingers through. “For making me feel less alone. For risking everything to help me leave.” I move the hand in his hair down his chest until I feel the beating of his heart beneath my palm as I murmur each statement. “For seeing me as more than a princess locked in a tower.”
