It was painfully obvious he was dying to escape the tension. That, or he wanted to give us an excuse to talk and sort things out. I doubted that was a good idea.
“We have plenty of wood.” I gestured to the pile of dry wood stacked nearby.
“Then I’ll go find a stream for fresh water.” He left without even grabbing a flask. Couldn’t say I blamed him.
Zach sat across from the fire, sharpening one of his many knives. He paused, inspecting it, the orange and red flames reflecting in the silver blade.
It took several moments and a few deep breathing exercises for me to rise. I moved around the fire and took a seat next to him, making Zach twitch and nick his finger on the blade.
Cursing softly, he stuck his thumb in his mouth. He pulled it out to examine it, but blood rose to the surface immediately. As he went to suck on it again, I instinctively caught his hand and brought his finger toward my lips.
Then I stopped. Healing his wounds by a Kiss was not what he wanted. I released his hand, tore a small strip of fabric from the end of my sleeve and wrapped the end of his finger. I squeezed, applying pressure to the wound.
Throughout the whole process, Zach hadn’t moved or said a word, but I could feel his eyes on me.
“No Kiss?”
“You said no,” I whispered, barely audible over the sound of the crackling flames.
He didn’t reply. I thought he’d jerk his finger out of my hand, but he left it there.
I stole a peek at his face. His mouth was set in a thin line, but his brow was no longer furrowed, giving him a look of cool indifference rather than anger or hurt.
“I’m sorry, Zach, I know what I said upset you.”
Still, he remained silent.
“I just wanted you to know how sorry I am. Everything I’ve seen of you says running is the last thing you’d ever do. Whatever the situation, if given the opportunity, I know you’d stay and fight. You’d stay to protect the people you…you love.”
Or think you love.
Zach tapped his other fingers on his knee.
Well, it was hopeless. Perhaps tomorrow he’d be in a better mood. I started to release his finger when Zach caught my palm with his whole hand and squeezed it. Mystified, I watched him, afraid to take my eyes away, hoping he would offer some kind of hint about his thoughts.
“Do you know why I was born?” he asked.
I opened my mouth then closed it again, completely blank as to how to respond. Zach was indeed a rare breed. Romanticas and Royals never crossed paths, unless it was to put down a rebellion, and even then, a Royal wouldn’t usually go near a Romantica for fear of being branded a heretic themselves and stripped of their Royal title.
I thought he’d continue, as if it was a rhetorical question, but he waited for me to respond.
“It was…an accident, I suppose?”
“That’s what most people suspect. But that’s not what my mother told me.” Zach leaned back and glanced skyward. There were no stars or a moon to be seen, only the shadows of trees, and beyond that, blackness. “Have you ever been to a theater, princess?”
I shook my head. I’d heard of them, though. Apparently they were a Romantica tradition—a house where they told stories and sang ballads, almost always about Love.
“Oh, they’re amazing. Maybe after all this is over, I’ll take you to one.” Then he briefly closed his eyes, like he was steeling himself. “My mother worked at one. She sang beautifully and told stories in a way that made you feel like you were really there. But her best talent was just sitting with the guests and…talking. She made you feel like you were the most important person in the world, like there was only you and your dreams and nothing else mattered.
“My father was a prince passing through the town with his patrol. He and a few others visited the theater, and he met my mother. Her own mother had died just the day before, but she tried to be herself anyway, hiding her grief behind a pretty smile while serving food and drink.
“But my father…he noticed somehow. He pulled her aside and asked what was wrong. He’d seen her the other night, and tonight she was…different. To have a complete stranger see through her mask—it made my mother open her heart to him. Once she did, it didn’t take her long to fall in love with him. As for my father, at first, he claimed to not love her, but he returned to her almost every night to be with her. It wasn’t until he discovered she was pregnant that he finally realized…”
Swept up in Zach’s words, I couldn’t look away from his face.
His mouth twitched into a tiny smile. “My father became a heretic, too. He married her in secret, and when the Legion found out, they sent him on a solo suicide mission. But my mother talked about him all the time. She said every day she was away from him was painful.” Zach stayed quiet for a long time then looked at me. “Such desperation… Have you ever felt that, Ivy?”
Again, my voice locked in my throat. No, I hadn’t felt such a thing. It was preposterous, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to say it. Perhaps it was because of the intensity with which his eyes held mine, and I could feel desperation in them.
It was unheard of—a Royal wanting to marry a Romantica. Was this even true? Or a lie told by Zach’s mother to ease the pain of his father’s disappearance?
Zach seemed to read my thoughts. “I’m not naive. This could very well be a lie to help me think better of a father I never knew. But even if it was, doesn’t that mean something? That my mother still loved him so deeply as to lie for him? Even for me? Maybe it wasn’t mutual, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t real.”
“I’ve never seen such a thing,” I said at last. My throat felt dry after staying silent.
Zach placed a few more pieces of wood into the fire, and sparks flew upward. “No, I don’t suppose you have. Your kind is bred, isn’t it?”
Although I wasn’t happy about the term, I couldn’t deny its truth. I was a product of intricate breeding, of careful calculation and manipulation of genes to produce the most powerful Kisses of the Legion. I was a pure-bred Royal. My parents may not have even felt Lust for each other. They had entered the bedchamber with a goal, a purpose.
But a noble one—to produce an heir capable of fighting the Dark Forces and defending the four kingdoms. As for my mother, she saw every one of her children as soldiers, bred to help her find and destroy the Evil Queen. And it was what I wanted, too. I fought to end this war. To keep those little girls in Tulia’s class away from goblins and griffins.
Zach smiled and said, “But it seems the end result was well worth it.” He paused. “You’re a smart, resourceful, and beautiful princess. I can’t deny that.”
The fire before us was too hot. It made even my palms sweaty.
“Don’t forget ‘infuriating,’” I added.
Zach laughed, and I realized I had missed his laugh and easy smile in just that short amount of time. “And that.”
“Zach, what I said…I said out of anger, and fear. You scared me when you ran off.” I’d been alone without a partner, just like at the wall, with the dwarf about to kill me and Kellian gone, with no one watching my back.
“Ivy…”
“Even if you won’t Kiss me, you have to learn to trust me. We’re still partners.”
“And you have to trust me. Trust me when I say I can protect you without the Kiss, that we can defeat the dragon without it.”
I opened my mouth, but Zach raised his hand to stop me.
“You can’t change what I believe, no matter what you say or do. I will always believe kisses are not weapons. They were never meant to be weapons.”
“The safety of the kingdom should be placed before anyone’s personal beliefs,” I said.
“Give me a chance.”
“You’re no good to me dead, Zach.”
“I don’t plan on dying, Ivy.”
“You almost did today.”
“But I didn’t.”
This was hopeless. We were going around in circles. But we had accomplished one good thing: Zach was talking to me again—and not just that. He’d told me something very personal. If he continued to warm up to me, perhaps I could convince him to see my side.