“And I believe you’re not damned.”
“You don’t know half of what I did.”
I wanted to reach out and touch him; I couldn’t. “Do you regret it?”
His face lifted. His eyes were wide. “I’m tortured by it.”
That was the truth. Here was the Dorian I’d longed for from the start, the one freed of secrets.
He came forward on his knees. Forward, forward, and I still couldn’t move; I didn’t want to, but I justcouldn’t.He gathered up my hands. His were cold. “That night in the throne room, the night of the Thorn Rite?—”
“I remember.”
“I told you I’d despised you. That you were my burden. But I meant it when I told you in the cave that I felt likeyourburden. I saw your power from the moment I found you standing there in the Dip. And when you turned toward my sword…”
I swallowed. Didn’t speak.
“I was afraid of you,” he said. “Everything about you shone, like a goddess sent to this plane. Fearless. And every moment I spent with you after that, every time you turned those eyes on me, it struck new fear in me. Like you saw right through me.”
Dorian—he’d been afraid ofme?
“And fuck, when we were partnered by the stag…” His brows drew together, as though remembering in real time. “I knew I was the sacrifice at the altar ofyourpower—your ascent. I resented you, because no matter what Gawain or Rhiannon or the stag had seen in me, I knew it was dwarfed by what lay inside you.”
He let out a one-note bitter laugh. “And though you hadn’t yet tasted your own power, even though I was a bastard, you didn’t let me die. Twice in the Eldermaze, again under Virellan Falls, when you became Carys…”
Was that right? Had I saved Dorian’s life in every trial? All of it felt like a strange, bloody blur.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me.” He raised my hands. One by one, he placed his lips to the back of each. “But I need you to know that no matter what you choose—tonight, or in the years to come—I could never hate you. Never, never, never.”
His words rose into the air, hung in the stillness. His lips werestill warm on my hands, though he had lowered them back to my lap.
I had expected a war in my chest, a refusal coupled with the longing. At my coronation, I had sworn never to trust him again. But the truth was the truth, and this was Dorian’s and mine.
We were two changelings, brought together by a queen and a god. The spiritstag had known, had paired us for that reason.
Our power was wrought through pain.
I knew now: we were the same. We had grown up on opposite sides of the same wall, run the streets in parallel, stared up at the same moon. We were tortured by the same desires, cursed by the same sky.
I forgave him. Completely, thoroughly, irrevocably.
I stood with my hands in his. His face lifted as I neared, just as mine had as we’d approached the wall. I set my palms at either side of his head, thumbs over his temples.
We met eyes. He searched mine. I lowered my face and kissed his forehead.
“If you’re going back,” I murmured against his skin, “I’m going back.”
He closed his eyes, and for the first time since I’d left my home, I didn’t feel alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Dorian
The night had turneddawn-gray by the time we came out of the old house. Morning crept up once again in my district—the first dawn I’d seen from inside these walls in over twelve years. The jeweler’s son, somehow alive and grown.
If we lingered, I would be recognized.
I clasped Eury’s hand as we walked. Only the fringes of this district would do—the places I’d never gone as a boy. We needed a bed; I could feel the exhaustion flowing off her.