“Again? You never fight about it at all! You merely shut it down. Then, you shut me out.”
“I have no other choice.”
My laugh is wintry. “There is always a choice. Perhaps not an easy one—but I have never asked for easy.”
“Easy? You think this iseasyfor me?You think any of my choices are easy?” His words lift to a bellow. His eyes leap with fire as his fury rears its ugly head. “Gods, Rhya. Yale may be a consummate bastard, but he’s right about one thing. When it comes to you, I cannot think straight. Cannot see straight. I cannot see anything but you. And that does no one any good—not you, not me, least of all my kingdom.”
Something inside my chest crumbles to dust, pulverized by the devastating blow of his words. In my head, Yale’s insidious whisper haunts me.
I hope she was worth it. For her, you forsook your kingdom. For her, you abandoned your people.
“So, he was right.” I expel a fractured breath. “You see me as a liability.”
Penn’s jaw tightens. “I never said that.”
“Not in so many words. Forgive me if I do not rejoice inbeing described as a distraction to all you hold dear.” My mind is suddenly spinning twice its normal speed, a match for the mad patter of my pulse. Beneath the strain of its frantic beats, my heart feels as though it is cracking into pieces—and, with it, everything I have come to know about my place in this world.
The one at Pendefyre’s side.
“Rhya, just get on the horse.”
“He said what happened on Fyremas was my fault,” I whisper, as though he has not spoken. “That everyone blames me. Thatyoublame me.”
“I do not blame you. But—”
“But?”
He takes a shuddering breath. His brief pause is a fresh torment. “I will not lie to you in saying I have never considered the possibility that…”
“That what?”
“Maybe if I had been here instead of the Midlands, I would’ve—” He shakes his head. Swallows the words. Begins anew. “Maybe, once I returned, if I had been less distracted by—”
He does not finish the sentence. He does not need to; I read his intention in the silence, and finish it for him.
“Byme.” My voice is hollow.
A muscle leaps in his cheek as he works to control his emotions. He says nothing—either unwilling or unable to share his feelings on the subject. Holding me at arm’s length.
As he always has.
As he always will.
Lightning splits the sky overhead as the storm finally breaks, a loud boom of thunder directly on its heels. I do not bother looking up at the bolts that streak over the sea as I turn my back on Penn and start walking toward the portal. Rain falls in a deluge, soaking me instantly to the skin.
“Rhya!” he yells over another guttural rumble of thunder. “Wait!”
I do not wait.
“Where are you going?”
“Away from here.”
Away from you.
As I move, a small voice in the back of my mind pipes up that this is childish, that bolting from Penn’s presence will not lessen the lash of his words. I silence that voice with a ruthless headshake. The urge to flee,now, this very moment, has overridden any sense of logic that might normally guide my actions.
I increase my pace as I close the gap between me and the archway of stone. When I reach it, I pause to look back at him. He is six paces away, standing rigid with tension. His expression is even darker than the storm that looms overhead.