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."

For a moment, only the sounds of the palace carried to us. The muffled conversations and laughter. I wondered if my friends would come looking from me or if they'd assume I'd want privacy with Kai. Heat flooded my cheeks at the thought of what they might assume the privacy was for. Everyone just assumed that I was stupidly in love with him, as if I wasn't rational.

I took a step away from the door and turned, as if I could look through the thick wood to the throne room beyond.  I'd spent weeks clinging to the memory of something that might have been a lie. My friends had coddled me and whispered behind my back. They'd tried to intervene and leave me behind. All because they didn't trust that I could make the right choice when it came to Kai.  

My fists tightened in the skirt of my dress and I whirled on him, suddenly exhausted with everyone else's judgement and opinions. "Tell me why I should still love you?"

"You shouldn't."

I wanted to throw something at him. Heat pressed at my skin. "Don't do that. Don't play the martyr. Not we've both already been hung for our sins. You don't get to tell me back away now. I've suffered for loving you already. I already do. I need you to tell me how to keep going."

"I'm not playing the martyr. I'm being honest with you. I'm trying to do the right thing. I've been trying since I put you on that fucking boat to Pellarmus months ago."

"Sending me to Pellarmus wasn't the right thing, it was cowardice."

He leaned back in his chair. "That's what you think?"

"I would have fought with you."

"Good. I love to hear that you would have. I want that for you. I know that you mean it. But I need you to know that I wouldn't have fought with you." His throat bobbed and he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees as he looked up at me. "I thought I could. I thought that was the man I was. I thought that was who he'd raised me to be. I believe it up until the moment I walked into that ballroom and I saw you there and..." he shook his head. "What if it had been you and not her?"

I blinked at him. "What?"

He leaned back and ran a hand through his hair, mussing the dark waves. "Uri. I thought about that for weeks. When they lowered her casket into the ground I thought about how it could have been you. I mourned for her. I did. I still do. Uri was...What little I knew of her was brilliant. She was kind. And I will always wish I'd known her better. But if they'd shot you instead—" He shook his head. "So no. I wasn't willing to fight with you. Not with guns pointed at you. Not with your hand over a fire or with his nails digging into your scalp. And certainly not when he was putting his damn hand up your skirt. I wasn't going to risk it. Not when I could make a deal and get you out."

"Did he tell you he was doing that to me?" I whispered. "That he was putting his hand...that he was—"

"You told me as much before you left. At the dinner when the Blackburns first got here. And then after I sent you away, he loved to...elaborate and imagine aloud what else he might have done." Kai cleared his throat. "So if sending you to Pellarmus to get you away from a perverted monster makes me a coward, then I'll wear that title with pride. Of the titles I've been given recently, that one might be my favorite."

"My heart hurts."

His eyes were shining. "I didn't want you to be hurt. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I don't know what love looks like when it isn't killing someone. That's the only love I've ever seen. First with my birth parents and then again with my aunt and uncle. If what we have is like that...if it will end with you dead or wishing to be, I'll put a stop to us now."

"That wasn't what I asked you to do."

"We're going in circles, Monroe. We always do. This conversation is repetitive. It ends with you crying. Or angry. Or hurt. It ends with me apologizing over and over again for a choice I can't go back and make differently. The guilt it eating at me and I would do anything to help mend your heart. I know you're hurt. I know I've done this. Every part of it. But tell me, love, what does this remind you of? Who does this remind you of? Because I remember a time, back in Third Corps, when you sat on the other side of a similar situation and I told you, time and time again, that you didn't owe a prince any apologizes. Even though you probably did. Even though you felt like you did. And in the end, even though you'd apologized a million times, you're no longer with that prince. So what good are apologizes against a broken heart and betrayal anyway? Maybe we're doomed."

"I told you that I forgave you."

He offered me a sad smile. "I know you did. I just don't know that you meant it. I think you want to. I do. I just think that a lot has happened between us and it's going to take more than apologizes and more than words."

"Then give me more than that. Remind me." I turned away from him. "Remind me why we are in love." When I looked up again, he was staring at me, those golden eyes bright. "I need you to show me how to keep going. How do we put one foot in front of the other and keep walking in the darkness of this?"

"It'll take time."

"I've got time now. At least I think I do."

He held out his hand for me. "Come here." I swallowed, suddenly shy. Kai's brows lifted and reached his hand out further, "Please."

I moved towards him, the warmth of his skin a balm my broken soul needed as I threaded my fingers through his and let him pull me onto his lap and hold me there. He adjusted me, cradling my head against his chest. I watched the black and gold tattoos of the Erydian rivers dance along his arms as they tightened around me, cocooning me against his torso.

"I've had a lot of time to think about us," he said, his lips a ghost against my cheek. "A lot of time to dream about what our life might be like."

"Oh?" I whispered, my face partially buried in the folds of his open shirt.

He nodded and reached across the table to where a stack of papers and cup of pens sat. I straightened in his lap, my curiosity peaked, as he tested a few of the pens, scribbling along the edges of one of the pages until he'd found a black ball-point pen he liked.

He pulled a blank piece of paper towards us and said to me, "The only rule, is that I love you and we're happy. Yes?"

"Alright."

He nodded to the paper. "Where do we live?"

A laugh burst from me and I turned in his lap to look at him fully. "Now?"

He shrugged, his golden eyes alight with a carefree mischief I hadn't seen in a while. "There are no other rules. Today, tomorrow, five years from now. Where do we live?"

I considered. "The coast."

The corner of his mouth tugged up and he wrote, 'The Coast' in the corner of the page. "What else do we know about our home?"

I closed my eyes and leaned back against him, deciding that I would indulge him. "It's small, but not cramped. I don't like grand houses."

"Me either. Maybe two bedrooms."

I opened my eyes and turned to look at him. "Why the second?"

He pursed his lips, trying to hide his smile as he shrugged. "No reason. Just thought we might want a second bedroom in the future. Not today or tomorrow or even in a few years, of course. But this is our house. We might want one eventually." When I said nothing in response, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the tip of my nose. "Our house has one bedroom?" he said as he pulled away from me.

I caught hold of his shirt collar and pulled him back, catching his lips with mine. "Three," I said against him mouth.

He laughed, breaking our kiss. "Three?"

I nodded. "One for us. One for you to use as an art studio, so you can keep all of your pens and paints and things out of my kitchen, and one for our mothers—so they have a place to stay when they come to see us."

He nodded and wrote down the gist what I'd said. "And our mother's could help with any children we might have. You wouldn't mind sharing your kitchen with my art supplies again if we needed to convert that second bedroom into a nursery."

Children. Between me and Kai.

I swallowed and opened my mouth, prepared to have that conversation: the one where we discuss the fact that any child we have together, any child he has, could restart the Culling cycle—but he stopped me.

"There are no rules," he said. "We're together and we're happy. That's it. That's the dream. What would make you happy?"

I knew what the question actually was: if there were no walls there, if the possibility of restarting the Culling was removed, would I wanted to have children. Would I want to be a mother and would I want to share that with Kai?

"Just one, I think. To start."

He pressed a kiss to my forehead. "So no twins or triples for you then," he teased.

But I was still caught up in the dream we were building. "Our house would be right on the beach," I told him. "I don't want to farm. I don't like farming. Maybe chickens and I'd grow somethings maybe, but I think I'd rather us live in a town. I liked Pellarmus."

"Would you want to live there?"

"I don't think so. But I don't know. I don't know that I want to be in Erydia either."

"The world is big, we can find somewhere else."

I nodded. "A smaller cottage with two or three bedrooms. Maybe just two bedrooms and a loft. A nice fireplace and good size kitchen. Lots of shelves and a big work table—that was my biggest issue at home, we never had enough work space. When I'm making bread or trying to can things, there's enough room."

"I'll get you a big enough table."

"Running water."

He laughed, "She's dreaming big now."

"I'm not going back to an outhouse. Even if it's bad rusty water and the baths are always cold, I'll take it. I just can't go back to an outhouse."

"I'll see what I can do."

"It won't be like my house in Varos," I said. "It'll have separate rooms for things."

"A living room that's separate from the kitchen."

"Yes, and the living room would have bookshelves in it, with tons of books about all sorts of things. And maybe you'd have a desk in there where you'd sit in the evenings and draw."

"Instead of the second bedroom?" he teased. "I thought you didn't want my art supplies all over the house."

"I didn't want them all over my kitchen. It isn't the same for the living room. You can have some things in there. Especially if you're drawing me."

"Noted." He tugged on a strand of my hair and asked, "What else?"

"And maybe in our kitchen there's a little breakfast nook that faces the ocean so we can watch the ships in the morning."

He nodded, still writing out the details of our imaginary house. "We wouldn't have to have a ladder to a loft," he said to me. "We could have a small second story with stairs leading to it. This is a dream, let's splurge. If you get running water, I get stairs."

"We could have a dog or a cat."

"Why not both?" He said, writing it down.

"When I used to go running in Pellarmus, some of the houses would have these pretty glass art displays hanging from the front porches—their little and colorful and they make music in the wind. A lot of the venders in the market sold them too."

"So we need a front porch," he said, adding that. "And wind...?"

"I think they're called wind chimes."

He nodded. "Perfect."

"And our front porch would have rocking chairs on it. It would face the street, I think. So we could people watch and talk about our neighbors. And when the kids were old enough, I'd be able to sit there in the mornings and watch them walk to school."

Something about saying that, about vocalizing that portion of the dream, letting myself get so very lost in it, frightened me.

I stared at him. "None of this is possible, Kai."

He set the pen down on the page, our list of dreams forgotten. "Nothing about our lives has ever been normal. What should be possible and what is possible are two different things for people like us. That is especially true for a girl like you. For someone who is literally goddess-touched. If this is the future we want, then this is the future we'll strive for. We may not have it today or tomorrow...but we'll have it."

I stared at the list he'd written. "But the list, this dream, is based on a world where no rules exist. And in the real world so many rules govern our lives. The rules will keep us from having this."

I started to pull away, prepared to stand up, the conversation and moment gone, but Kai caught hold of me. "Monroe, please. You asked me to remind you why we're in love. You asked me to help you get through the darkness of this. And I'm going to, but I need you to walk with me. It's just like the tunnels through the Demarti Mountains." I stilled, turning to look at him again. "I'm going to stay with you the entire time, walking by your side, holding your hand, guiding you and doing my best to prove to you that I love you and this time it be different. But I can't make you believe it. I can't make you move."

"Britta hasn't even said what she plans to do about the Culling or the goddess-touched girls."

"We'll deal with that when it comes. Right now, we're talking about us. Our future. Our life. And while it is hinged on that, so much is, the one thing that remains true between the list we've made and the reality of our situation is this: I love you and we will be happy."

🔥🔥🔥

I'm sorry for the delay. When I tell you my life has been hell since I last updated...it has been. Things are wild. Most recently, I've been on final proofreads for Of Cages and Crowns, trying to do move-in for my job (I work in college housing), AND I just got over Covid. Now I have pink eye. Turns out you can get pink eye from HAVING COVID. 🫠💀😅😭😩 And that's just the things that have happened in the last two weeks. 🙃 I swear it isn't that I haven't wanted to upload.

Anyway. If you've enjoyed this chapter, leave this 🤠 emoji in the comments.

Less than 100 days until OC&C!

ALSO I'll be at WATTCON on November 19th as a panelist! So if you live in LA or plan to go, please come and hang out with me. I'll be signing early copies and giving out some cool OC&C goodies. ❤️