Page 98 of Revealing Fate

She waited. He said nothing. Disappointment burrowed into her like an unwelcome parasite. “See? You say you don’t want to change me, but you can’t even speak my name.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Am I? Being ridiculous?”

“Yes.”

Felíne leaned forward, pronouncing each word with care. “Prove it. Say. My. Name.”

Kal blew out a frustrated breath and turned away from her.

“You are a coward.”

Kal’s face shut down. He pushed himself to his feet, closing her out. Oh, no, you don’t. Not this time. She stood. Why? Why wouldn’t he just say it? Kalevar, who was so steadfast, so self-assured. His stubborn refusal to accept the inevitable was decidedly unlike him, and it bothered her. What the hell wasn’t he telling her?

Felíne tried again. “You know, I never thought I’d witness the day Kalevar Kaine ran from the truth. You wanted me to talk to you? To open up? How can you expect that of me when you can’t even stomach what I have to say?”

Nothing.

Something cracked inside her. Furious tears burned behind her eyes. He was shuttering. Slipping away from her once more. “When I was in that cell, the only thing you wanted was my name. You demanded it.” There, finally, she captured his gaze. “I couldn’t do it. I was still too afraid. But you came for me anyway.”

Felíne reached forward and took Kal’s hand. Firelight from the oil lamps danced around them. “I told you my name, Kalevar. I gave you what you wanted. Why can you not accept it? Why won’t you say it?”

Kal closed his eyes. When they reopened, something stirred in their depths. The frozen sea cracked. “You want to know why I avoid the truth? Why I can’t stomach it?” His voice dropped, strained. “Because if you really are the Prima of Ilistaar, then you can never be mine. And that is not a reality I am willing to accept.”

Felíne’s lungs seized. Her heart stuttered.

Kal dropped her hand, his own curling to fists. “If you’re the Prima, if this fucking curse is real, then you are tied to my bloodline.” Black, swirling pools of despair met her startled gaze. “My father’s brother, my uncle Karrick, is the Primordial Male.”

The cushioned rug beneath Felíne’s feet dropped away. She was suspended in time, caged in a torturous existence. Suddenly, horribly, it all made sense. She knew why Kal had hunted down every copy of the godscripts he could find. He’d been trying to find answers about his family. About his uncle.

The Primordial Male. Felíne’s divine match. Her fated mate.

No. No. No, no, nonono.

She backed up a step, legs suddenly weak. Somehow, impossibly, she found her voice. “No. That’s not…I can’t…”

Kal’s expression filled with such anger, such raw, unchecked anguish, that she knew it was true. But how? How could this newly revealed fate be so cruel? Binding her life to a complete stranger was one thing. But this? Being bound to Kal’s uncle? His only remaining family? This was unthinkable. Unbearable.

“Now you know,” he said bitterly. “My parents were the Lord and Lady of Brightsea, rulers of the Eastern Realm. Our blood was chosen to meld with that of the Asterosian monarchy. I didn’t find out until Domitan and Serebine extended a formal invitation to my family. A summons to visit the capital and discuss the future of our families.” Kal’s voice took on a hard edge. His handsome features twisted with menace. “But they lied. Asteros wanted to be imperial supreme. Power over all the land, all the people, and all divinely chosen. They lured my parents to the capital under the guise of hospitality, then slaughtered them in their sleep and imprisoned my uncle. They did not know I was their son. I wasn’t supposed to survive.”

And there it was. The terrible truth. The reason why Kal’s parents had been killed. It hadn’t been for political control. To this day, her father held no interest in the Eastern Realm. Nor had it been for crimes against the crown. No. Kal’s family had been invited as guests, then cut down, because the King and Queen of Asteros did not want a treaty. They didn’t seek an alliance. They wanted absolute, unchecked control. They saw their Goddess, their chosen, as the right to superiority, and the Primordial Male as a pawn to be used as they saw fit.

Tears descended Felíne’s cheeks in hot rivulets. She didn’t know what to say. What could she?

“I saw you when we visited the palace,” he continued.

Felíne gasped, fingers gripping the coin around her neck until the worn metal bit into her palm. She searched her memory, tried desperately to find a boyhood version of Kal, but couldn’t. She’d never learned the names of palace guests as a child; the importance of introduction lay in her title alone. Later, once all visitors had been banned, their faces were lost to time. They faded like whorls of mist under an Asterosian sun. Had she been introduced to the Primordial Male as a little girl and not even realized? Had she met Kal’s parents? The thought that she had, and they’d later been murdered while she slept soundly under the same roof, seemed an impossible cruelty.

“You were young and bright and golden. Like a perfect doll.” Kal huffed a humorless laugh, remembering. “I was appalled. I thought how unfair it was that my uncle should be forced to marry a child. I was fourteen.”

Felíne squeezed her eyes shut.

“Who could have known,” Kal said, deep voice gentle, “that all these years later, my contempt for Karrick’s fate would become such envy?”

Oh, Kal. Felíne couldn’t bear it. His words ripped into her heart, shred by shred, the gouges spilling sorrow like life’s blood with every agonizing beat.

Kal reached forward and brushed the wetness from her cheeks. “You wanted my secrets, Felíne of Asteros, Prima of Ilistaar. There they are.”