Her voice was even, but it scraped her throat raw. “I’m going for the people of Lornhelm. And I am going because my brother, for reasons I cannot fathom, fought to put me there. If someone is fighting just as hard to remove me, I need to know why.”
His posture faltered, the hope in his expression dimming, but it didn’t disappear. “But you’ll still come?”
She nodded.
Gods, how she wished it were simpler. Standing beside him, the distance between their bodies felt fragile and dangerous. Her fingers itched to reach for him. Her body remembered the nights she’d been in the throes of her Heat.
And yet . . .
If her heart still beat traitorously at the thought of Alexander, that was hers to bear. Quietly. Cautiously. But her mind had a new purpose: to solve the riddle of ShunLi’s bargain and defend the ground he had, inexplicably, arranged for her.
“I’ll come,” she said again, softer this time. “For Lornhelm. And for the truth.”
His gaze searched her face as if memorizing something sacred. Then, with the gentlest ache in his voice: “Thank you.”
She turned away before he could see the shimmer in her eyes.
CHAPTER 45
JINGYI
The Aethonian coastline thinned to a pale seam between sea and sky, the colours of Nymaris dissolving into the distance.
JingYi stood at the gunwale, early morning wind blowing her skirt. In the stillness, she could almost feel Reiyana’s arms wrapped tight around her again, silk against silk. Hear her voice, fierce in its softness.
‘You’ve been a friend. A true companion in so short a time. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish you’d come with us to Asadia, but I understand why you can’t.’
She had given Reiyana a bracelet she secretly commissioned with Princes Kaelendrin and Alarik’s help—a slender gold band capped with two small, polished jade balls. Reiyana had dreaded the return voyage, already sick at the thought of the sea.
‘The jade balls press against points on your wrist that ease nausea,’JingYi had explained, slipping it onto Reiyana’s hand.‘It should help you weather the crossing more comfortably.’
Reiyana had stared down at the gift, composure faltering, before pulling JingYi into another embrace.
‘Thank you,’she had uttered.‘You are a beautiful person, JingYi. Don’teverforget.”
Captain Marzius had stood guard at a respectful distance. As JingYi stepped back from Reiyana, she turned to him. The words came to her easily.
‘Thank you, Captain. For your companionship, and for matching my pace.’She offered a small, sincere smile.‘Any woman would be lucky to have you.’
He’d placed a fist over his heart in a soldier’s salute, but he didn’t speak.
A seagull’s scream brought her back to the present. It flew overhead, white against the sky. She didn’t hear Alexander approach, but she heard the creak of the deck, the brush of his presence at her side.
“I thought you’d be below,” he said. “It’s cold up here.”
“I don’t mind the cold,” she murmured, eyes still fixed on the horizon.
He stood beside her, the silence stretching like a taut line between them—not uncomfortable, exactly, but far from easy.
“I never know how to start these conversations,” he admitted.
That drew her gaze.
“I’ve always been better with action than words. But with you, I keep wishing I have the right ones.”
A soft breath of amusement left her. “That makes the two of us.”
They lapsed into silence again, but this time it wasn’t strained. It was the kind that settled between people who’d run out of excuses and finally made room tofeel.