The Reckless Reign (Book 3, The Culled Crown Series)

Chapter 78

The next few minutes of my life were a blur. I knew that Kai was escorted from the throne room and into the same small room where I'd met with him earlier. I knew that Britta said a few more things about the importance of grace and something else about her intentions with her reign going forward. I kept telling myself to listen, kept trying to focus on her words, on the lilt of her voice, on the whispers of the crowd around me, but I heard nothing.

I just stared at the door, waiting for the moment she finished talking and we were dismissed. Next to me, Heidi and Nadia's hands were tight around mine. I think they suspected that if I were released, I'd bolt from my chair and run for him. I might have.

But I forced myself to stay still, to wait.

As soon as Britta finished speaking and stood from her throne so her guards could escort her from the room, I was on my feet and moving across the room. The synod was in an uproar, their voices echoing from the row of seats nearest the throne. Clearly this wasn't a decision that the queen had run past her council.

Judging by the look of confusion and, slight amusement on Cohen's face as I caught his eye, it seemed he hadn't known what his sister was going to do either. He offered me a small smile and a half-hearted shrugged before he nodded towards the antechamber door and moved to follow after Britta and her entourage.

Kai's wounds hadn't been treated while he was in a cell for a month, so when I burst through the door of the small room, there were already healers at work. He sat at the head of a rectangular table I hadn't even noticed before, his chair pushed back far enough that the two women could examine the cuts and bruises on his arms and chest.

His shirt was already halfway unbuttoned revealing a full, welted burn in the shape of a handprint. My hand. I froze, my eyes locked on his bare skin and the angry red mark there. The healers turned to look at me, their eyes going wide at whatever they saw in my expression.

Kai didn't look at the healers as he said, "Thank you for you help, but I'm fine now. You can leave us."

In seconds, they'd gathered their tools into their bags and were scurrying through the main door and out into the busy hallway beyond. For a moment, the sounds from the palace seemed to swallow the entire room. Conversations swelled between us, things we had said and had not said. The mistakes. The lies. The hurts and happiness.

"I should have told you who I was sooner. As soon as I realized I was falling in love with you, I should have been honest. Maybe, if I were a better person, I would have never allow us to get close enough to even be in this position, but clearly I'm not. Because here we are. I had to test a theory. I had to know if you were really goddess-touched. I felt...compelled to get close to you and now here we are. I doubted that the goddess was even real, and now I can't look at you without seeing how otherworldly you are. You're..." he shook his head, "I don't deserve you."

"You lied to a lot of people."

"I thought I was doing the right thing."

"Did you tell Britta about any of this?"

He nodded. "Britta...She's been taking her dinners in the prisons with me the last week. Sitting on the other side of the bars from me, of course. My sister is a believe in the adage of 'keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.' She's allowed me to tell her a great many things."

I took a step back and leaned against the shut door. There was a humor to his voice that sounded almost... "You like her."

He shrugged and leaned an elbow against the edge of the table. "I do. I think, despite what others might think of her, she'll make a good queen. And I'll support her, if I able to. Not that my support is worth very much at the moment, but still."