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“I don’t understand.”
“It’s not a rose, Ana, but it’s not wrong that you see one. A soul looks like different things to different people.”
I stopped dead. “A soul?”
“Constance’s soul,” he said, walking on ahead of me. “The one I ripped out of her chest and locked away in a cold, dark tower—forever imprisoned. Forever suffering.”
I stared after him, eyes wide.
“Did you know a soul could suffer?” Alisdair sounded almost conversational. “People value the body and the mind, but the body is just a vessel, and the mind is unreliable. It changes so often, it breaks so easily.
“All we are is our soul, and when ripped from its protection, it never recovers. It never stops screaming.” He laughed. “Or did you believe that was the wind howling?”
A chill raced up my spine, standing my hairs on end. “Alisdair...”
“Constance and I faced each other on a burning field, but she was prepared for fire. She laughed as her weapons shielded her from the flames—taunting her victory and my failure. She laughed while walking headlong into my trap.
“I tore her filthy, rotting soul—bloated and fed by the souls of innocents—out of her carcass, and on that burning field I built my kingdom. Over the centuries, all have wondered how I wield such limitless power, but I have no power. No more than any other faeman. Like them all, I must drain magic from another source.”
“The rose.” It wasn’t a question.
He laughed louder, his malice washing over the flowers as he moved further away from me. “My final victory. Wind and Wild is everything she despises, and it was her magic that made it happen. I created her hell on earth, and forever this prison ensnares her while voiceless, sightless, and helpless, she screams.
“So, what say you, my queen?” Alisdair passed over the threshold, leaving me behind. “Do you still think me soft and kind?”
It was my fault. It was me who stupidly thought Alisdair telling me the truth was a good thing.
“I WAS A HORSE BREEDERin my previous life.”
Alisdair walked side by side with me through the square, his hand firm and tickling against the small of my back. He nodded to people we passed, but his attention was on me. Despite all thetime he spent teaching me archery and how to rule a kingdom, it was only now that I felt what it truly meant to have his time and attention.
And the result was I was wishing harder for my litter than ever. I refused it to keep Emiana at bay, but I regretted that decision as I leaned heavily on Alisdair—sore in places I didn’t know I could be sore. I swore he was determined to make up for all the nights he couldn’t chase me down and have his way with me.
But even so, our nights together weren’t like they were before. I didn’t need to tempt him with favors to get him to open up, and he didn’t have to maintain tight control of himself every minute of every day. The result was for the first time since we stood at the altar, he was my husband, and I was his wife.
“I’ve always had a more natural affinity with horses than I did other animals.”
Alisdair looked exceptionally handsome that morning, and that was saying something. His scars were all but gone. Only faint, fading lines marred his stomach and chest, but those would be gone soon enough.
He bound his hair back, pulling it taut around his horns. Horns that were smaller than I’d ever seen. After weeks of being forced to rest and not using magic, he was strong enough to take in more than ever. His horns were smaller, his claws were blunt, his fangs couldn’t be seen behind his full lips.
All of that was well and good, but it wasn’t what kept my eyes drawing up to bask in him.
Alisdair looked calmer and more relaxed than I’d ever seen him. Since we’d met, he’d been that hungry, stalking wolf—prowling unfamiliar streets warning off anyone who dare make themselves his prey.
Since telling the truth of his history with Raelina, Constance, and his daughters, the burden weighing down his own souleased just that little bit, allowing it to come up for air in a sea of pain, hatred, and rage.
Seeing him like this, I could imagine the young, handsome horse breeder who ignited mad obsession in Constance, and such pure love in Raelina that her heart led her back to him, even after lost memories stole him away.
“Were you able to mind-ride with them?” I asked when he caught me staring at him.
“I was,” he confessed. “The only animal that I could, but I wasn’t complaining. The joy and freedom that a wild stallion feels as it gallops through the plains...” He shook his head. “There’s nothing quite like it.”
“Amazing.” We strolled around the fountain—having nowhere to go, and not rushing to get there. “We don’t see those gifts much these days. Do you think Meya really is punishing us? For leaving the forests? For betraying her daughters?”
“I believe we have come too far from what she expected of us, but we are punishing ourselves. Meya didn’t make us do the things we’ve done, and isn’t preventing us from stopping. We are steering our ship toward the rocks all on our own.”
I hummed, turning that over in my mind. It was easy to forget Alisdair was wise, amid his harshness and jackassery, but when I thought about it, he rarely said a thing I disagreed with. He was even correct that he would one day corrupt me.
