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What? "What do you mean they're gone?"
"They've begun their journeys back home," he finally looks at me. "We finished negotiations this morning."
"Excuse me? How could you have done that without me? What about my country? My people?" Heat crawls up my spine, and the rage growing inside me is ready to boil over.
"I agreed to everything your people asked for," he answers, finally looking at me with something akin to guilt crawling into his face.
"Everything?"
"Everything. And once I made that decision, everything else was done within an hour, agreed upon, and signed on seven copies for seven countries," he explains.
"But I wasn't there to sign. How did you—" That sticky, horrid feeling creeps up inside him again, tempered with a righteousness that makes me sick to think of what he's not telling me. "What did you do, Kairon?"
He rubs his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of one hand. "I did what I had to."
Fear grips me. "What did you do?"
He clears his throat, putting down the papers. "I sent Rhyma's copy with a runner—a Zalig who can make it to Drechire in less than an hour."
"But it doesn't have my signature, so how could you have?" My whole body goes cold. "Please tell me you did not forge my signature rather than just wake me?"
"No, my Elva, I didn't."
"Then tell me what you did," I order, seconds away from using my abilities to make him.
"As I said, I agreed to every single thing they proposed. The usage of my armies should they need them, the trade routes, the taxes for imports and exports, the—"
I cut him off, "In exchange for what?"
"All I requested in return was you," he admits.
"Me?" I scoff. "There's no way they will ever agree to that."
Sorrow and sympathy bleed into him, and he sighs. "Elva."
"No," I say again, my voice wobbling around the lump growing in my throat. "They wouldn't do that to me. Wouldn't just trade me like a pawn to some fucking man in another country."
He stares intently at me, his visage blurring through the liquid pooling in my eyes. "My runner returned 30 minutes ago, Elva. It's done."
"No," I say again, a tear running down my face as I think of how little I must mean to a country I've given everything for. "You can't— they can't. How could they do this to me?"
Ever the strategist, he stays outwardly perfectly calm. "In their defense, it was a good deal. They got everything they wanted from me and guaranteed peace between all of our countries besides that. All they had to do was let me keep you."
"Keep me? What do you mean keep me?" I nearly shout. The king only continues staring at me, his ice-cold facade firmly in place. "Like I'm a fucking pet?"
The mask slips, a small smile twisting his deceitfully perfect mouth. "If that's how you'd like to see it, I'm sure I could find you a collar around here somewhere."
My voice shakes. "This is not the time for your taunting and flirting, Your Majesty." The honorific hardens whatever humor he finds in the situation. "This is my life we are talking about. My future. Everything I've worked for. And you're willing to take it all away from me? After everything?"
"It doesn't matter." He clears his throat. "It's done. Be as dramatic as you like, but this is your home now."
All the fight has bled out of me, his resolve far more than I can stand a chance against. Feeling entirely defeated, I let the tears fall, a final plea and sob crushing my chest. "You can't do this to me."
"You can't see it now, my Elva, but this is for you," he runs a hand through his hair, the nervous gesture wholly familiar now that I've watched the motion countless times.
"For me? Please," I scoff. "This is for you! You have full ownership of me now, no longer at risk of starting a war if something should happen to me. You could end me right this second and walk away victorious, still. We can end this charade of... whatever we've been doing. You can continue ruling just as you always have, and I'll just be the dead girl you forget all about. A means to an end."
Finally, he snaps, slamming his coffee on the table and shattering the glass. "That's enough."
