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Your Majesty,
I wish to recount my observations of the previous night. Upon witnessing the supposed demigod, Bronze, donning his shirt in the hallway after leaving the lady’s bedchamber, I followed him to the royal coffers you had pointed out to me during the tour the day of my arrival. There, he was intently inspecting the coffers’ door, and I confronted him on his intentions. He evaded my questions, naturally, but it was clear he never intended to be caught. I also suspect that he had no true intention of remaining as the lady’s champion and competing any further for her hand and, by extension, your kingdom’s best interests. In my experience, once a thief acquires what they have been searching for, they tend to flee.
Use this information as you wish. As a testament to the strength of our future alliance, I share this freely so you and your daughter may go into the days ahead with open eyes and clear consciences.
-Lord Raff
Bronze let the note fall to the floor. It was either that or incinerate the thing and piss on the ashes. “Clara?—”
“I shall have the truth now or nothing at all. I recall that night you were angry with me, as you should have been based on how I treated you, but I cannot understand . . .” Clara’s eyes dipped lower a fraction, her only deference to a debate. But all too soon that arctic gaze returned to him, and the mask was set into place once more. “I never showed you where the coffers were. I only told you that they existed. The serving female who brought me linens that night, she was also carrying the moonstone relic to return it to the coffers.”
Bronze saw the moment those cogs fit into each other like shark’s teeth, and a true soul-crushing fear gripped him.
“You followed her,” she whispered, understanding brightening her gaze but dragging down her features with even more disappointment. “Followed where she took the relic so you’d know where the coffers were located. In truth, I observed you noticing her, but I foolishly thought you were worried she might stumble. She was carrying quite a load down the stairs, and she is getting on in years.”
Fuck. This was spiraling too fast. Every time his mind latched on to one thread to try and tame it, another would spring loose and unravel at twice the speed. All the while, Clara was shrinking further and further away from him, until he barely recognized the look she gave him, so foreign it was to see it splayed across her features.
It was one of disgust, repulsion.
“It was the relic,” he admitted, his hands outstretched before him, desperately reaching for her even as she pulled away.
“What?”
And then his arms fell. Just plunked to the sides of his frame as if he had nothing left to offer save for whatever truth he could submit that he hoped would at least fill in the gaps left by his lies.
“When I pulled you out of the river and brought you to my brothers, Rhode noticed the relic around your neck as something other than what you know it as. It was a mirror image of what he’d seen in Cyro’s possession, something with enough power to possibly open the gates of the Empyrean again.”
“I thought you said your goddess revealed it as a celestial mechanism by which our souls could at last discover each other. That was what the magic was for, to finally free your powers.”
“After. All of that happened after I’d already joined with you, and I had no idea the thing was capable of any of that.”
She seemed to latch on to that piece of information, and he held the kernel of hope in his chest that he could somehow still get through to her.
Until she held her claw above the one thread he’d hoped she wouldn’t snag and shredded it.
“So your goal the entire time was to obtain the relic so you might use its magic—the magic you suspected it of having—to return home. You never intended to remain here with me, in this kingdom, even as a visiting monarch as per our original agreement.”
There was no going back from what she’d ripped open. He knew that now and knew that, as she stood there with those expectant eyes begging him to tell her anything other than the truth, he’d ruined the one thing in his life that gave him hope for happiness.
Bronze dipped his head, shame weighing the thing down, and spoke the truth. The entirety of it. “The tattoo you saw on my chest, the one with Polina’s name, was born from a celestial oath I made with her brother, that’s true, but there was more to it. I swore to look after her, not in the manner of her brother’s best friend but as a mate.”
An icy chill thickened the air further. “A mate?”
“Yes. My station as a sentinel would have afforded her more security. I had the skills and means to defend her should things with Cyro’s armies get worse. But it was a promise made to a dying friend on the battlefield, Clara, not one thought out and the repercussions examined for eons to come. I made it out of love for Malik, not because I loved Polina as anything more than a fond acquaintance. Fuck, I haven’t even seen her since I fell, and I don’t even know whether she knows about the oath.”
“But you’ve thought of nothing else since then, clearly. And you used me and my circumstances to try and find a means to your own end so you might discover a way back to her.”
“At first, yes, but listen to me.” He rushed toward her, but the warning in her stare drew him back.
“Why did you insist I wear the relic last night when we—” She cleared a sob from her throat, stomping out the emotion. “When we had sex?”
Had sex. Not made love.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I just did.”
“Was it just for your own vanity’s sake? Or were you so impressed at how beautifully you’d orchestrated this whole production that you wanted to marvel at your exploits while conquering another?” She leaned forward on her hips and flared her eyes. “Tell me, were you disappointed when you couldn’t cut it from my throat? After all the times you had to bleed on my behalf in the games that I begged you to compete in?”
“No! Never!” His heart. Oh, mages, his heart. The thing hemorrhaged freely, each pump expelling more of the vital fluid that had kept his hollow shell of a body moving throughout the ages.
