A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire (Blood and Ash 2)

“It’s not because of you, Penellaphe. It was his choice. Just as it has been his choice not to feed.”

“I still don’t get that.” Frustrated, I picked up a fistful of sand. “Why would he do this to himself? I felt his hunger, Kieran. It was intense, and the longer he goes, it will only get worse—”

“And you will be more at risk.”

I stilled, even though my heart thundered. “I thought he was the only person I was safe with. Isn’t that what you said?”

“You are, but when an Atlantian doesn’t feed, no one is safe. Not even those they care about or even love.”

Air left me in a singular rush. Love? “He doesn’t care for me.”

Kieran stared back at me. “If it helps you to believe that, then by all means, continue. But that doesn’t make it true.”

I glared at him. “And just because you spout vague statements doesn’t make whatever you’re saying true either.”

“He gave you his blood when you didn’t need it, just so you wouldn’t be in pain when you woke—”

“And so I didn’t delay in leaving New Haven!”

“Funny how we weren’t planning to leave the moment you woke anyway,” he replied. “Which you’re conveniently forgetting.”

I clamped my mouth shut.

“Even if that were the case, which it isn’t, if he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have been concerned over you being uncomfortable during our travels, would he? And if he didn’t care, he would’ve used a hundred different compulsions at this point, no matter how temporary, to keep you better controlled, something that would make all our lives easier.”

My eyes narrowed.

“He wouldn’t be marrying you, risking the ire of not just his entire kingdom but also his parents, who you will soon discover are not two people you want to anger just so you have a chance to make it through this alive, free from the Ascended and from him. If that is what you choose,” he went on. “But more importantly, he would’ve stuck to the plan he spent years cultivating, and we would’ve already been halfway to Carsodonia to exchange you for his brother. Yet, here we are. And the only reason why any of that changed is because once he got to know you, he started to care for you.”

I wanted Kieran to take back those words because they did things to my heart, and even worse, dangerous things to my mind.

“You’re annoying,” I muttered.

“The truth often is. But you want to know an even more annoying truth?”

“Not really.”

“Too bad, because you need to hear this. He cares for just like you care for him despite the lies and the betrayal,” Kieran stated. “That’s why, even when you were the Maiden, you shared your secrets with him and allowed him things you would’ve never permitted anyone else. That’s why you didn’t use that dagger strapped to your thigh this morning, even though you knew how to use it against an Atlantian. That’s why you want to know more about Shea. It’s why, even now, you are concerned about him.” His eyes flashed an intense blue. “And just so you know, the only reason I didn’t end your life the second I learned that you stabbed him in the heart is because he cares for you. Is that less vague enough for you, Penellaphe?”

My lips parted on a shaky inhale. I didn’t want to hear what he said. I didn’t want to recognize the truth of his words. Acknowledging them was…it felt irrevocable.

Because caring for Casteel meant more than just wanting him. It meant either forgiving or forgetting his lies and betrayals, and I didn’t know if that was right or wrong. Because him caring for me meant more than just an agreement or pretending, and the implications of all of that was…well, it was terrifying for a multitude of reasons. Kieran could be wrong. Casteel could care for me, but not deeply. While I would…oh, gods, I already knew what it meant for me to care for him—what I desperately wished wasn’t the case.

That I’d started falling in love with him when we first met and hadn’t stopped.

But beyond that, I was the Maiden—a person his people, his family, would most likely loathe. I was only half-Atlantian. I would age and die, and he would be who he was today for so many years, it would feel like an eternity to me.

I stared at the sand, feeling more out of my element now than I had since this whole thing started. “The night before I learned who he really was, I had already decided that I could no longer be the Maiden. It wasn’t just because of him. Maybe how I felt about him was the start of me realizing that I could never live in the skin of the Maiden, but I wanted to stay with him,” I admitted, my voice hoarse and barely above a whisper. “Even though I thought he was a Royal Guard and would have to basically go into hiding with me, I wanted to be with him—to stay with him somehow. Because he made me feel…. He made me feel like I was alive.” I swallowed hard. “I did care for him. I cared for him a lot.”

“He was Casteel then just like he’s Hawke now,” Kieran stated quietly, drawing my gaze to him. “And you know that. You just aren’t ready to accept it.”

I briefly squeezed my eyes shut. Still, caring for him could cause a chain of reactions I wouldn’t be able to prevent. Caring for him felt like I was betraying not just Vikter and Rylan and all of those who’d died because of him, but also myself. That I forgave his lies and his misdeeds. Still caring meant…

“Still caring for him would only lead to heartache,” I whispered, knowing the truth right then and there. I did care. I never stopped caring. And acknowledging that felt as if I’d slipped under the black water.

“It doesn’t have to,” Kieran said. “But even so, sometimes, the heartbreak that comes with loving someone is worth it, even if loving that person means eventually saying goodbye to them.”

The roughness in his tone spoke more than his words shared. “You sound like you have experience with that.”

“I do.” A long moment of silence passed between us. “Do you know what happens when an Atlantian cares for someone?”

I shook my head, wanting to know more about this person that he’d loved but had to say goodbye to.

Kieran didn’t give me a chance. “They find the idea of feeding from someone else repellent. It’s too intimate for them to even consider. And if the partner is mortal? It usually takes the mortal proving to the other that it’s okay for them to feed, and in some cases, the Atlantian is lost to the darkness of hunger. That’s why he hasn’t fed.”

My heart thudded against my ribs as I told myself that couldn’t be the case with Casteel. It just couldn’t.

Kieran was quiet only for a few minutes. “Cas told me once that he felt as if he already knew you after speaking with you just a few times.”

I wiggled my toes in the sand once more. “I asked him about that.”

“This is my surprised face,” Kieran murmured, and when I looked at him, his expression was the same as always. Bored with a hint of amusement.

My lips twitched despite the insanity of our conversation as I turned back to the sparkling, sun-drenched midnight water. “He told me he believed it was the Atlantian blood in him, recognizing mine.”

“And you felt the same?”

I nodded. “Is that a possibility?”

“Possibly,” he said after a moment. “But I don’t think that’s the case. I think it’s something deeper than that. Something intangible, far rarer and stronger than bloodlines and even the gods. Something powerful enough that it has ushered in great change in the past.”

Tensing, I had a feeling I didn’t want to know what he thought. That whatever it was would be even more earth-shattering than what he’d already shared. It’d be words given life that I wouldn’t be able to control.

“I think you’re heartmates.”

Chapter 24

Heartmates.

Kieran didn’t elaborate on what that meant, and I didn’t ask for more information. I’d never heard of such a thing, and I didn’t want to.

Processing the idea of Casteel caring about me was complicated enough without adding yet another intangible element to it.

But what Kieran had said—all of it— lingered throughout breakfast, robbing the food of all taste as my gaze kept roaming back toward the white banners hanging on the walls of the dining hall, spaced six feet apart. In the center of each of them was an emblem embossed in gold, shaped like the sun and its rays. And at the center of the sun was a sword lying diagonally atop an arrow.

I knew I was staring at the Atlantian Crest.

We ate at a narrow table in a dining room that’d once served the people of Spessa’s End but now was empty except for Quentyn, who had brought the eggs, crispy bacon, and biscuits out to us when we arrived. He chatted with Kieran, his energy from the night before seeming just as high. I tried to focus on the conversation, aware of how different this was from the last time Kieran and I had shared food. Quentyn didn’t ignore me or treat me with barely contained dislike. If he knew I had once been the Maiden, he didn’t care. And that was, well…it would’ve been something to revel in if I didn’t keep looking around to see if Casteel appeared, or if my mind wasn’t so wrapped up in what Kieran had said.

I couldn’t focus on the fact that Casteel may care for me. I couldn’t even dwell on the revelation that I’d moved past the stage of caring for him quite some time ago. There was no amount of time or space for me to even come to terms with any of that and what it meant.

What I turned over and over in my mind was the reality that Casteel needed to feed, and if what Kieran had said was true, I needed to convince him to do so from someone else or…I needed to feed him.

But there really wasn’t an option between the two. Naill and Delano knew I was half-Atlantian, and if the others, whoever else was here, didn’t know, they would learn soon enough. Casteel feeding from someone else wouldn’t exactly convince anyone of our intent to marry, would it?