Gently, she pulled her hand from his. “I won’t come between you and her either. I might have been willing to consider it when I thought your heart wasn’t on the line, but now that I know the truth…” She shook her head. “I won’t destroy both of the men I care most for in this life all because the gods will it to be done.”
Something in his soul relaxed. All the pent-up frustration he’d felt through the years because he couldn’t have her leaked away. He reached for her without thinking, wrapped his arms around her and drew her against his chest. Her arms wound around his back, her cheek pressed against his shoulder. And as his body heat seeped into her, easing the chill of her skin, he realized this was the first time he’d ever held her. The only other time he’d been this close to her was when he’d foolishly kissed her, thinking he could force her to care for him.
What an idiot he’d been. She already had cared for him. He’d just been too stupid to realize her heart would always belong to his brother. Which was exactly where it was meant to be.
“We’ll find a way to fix this,” he said over her head.
“Maybe.” She eased out of his arms and rose. “Maybe not. But it’s not your responsibility. And I don’t want you to worry about me anymore tonight.” Her expression softened. “Go to her, Nick. And tell her… Tell her I’m sorry. For all of this.”
He pushed to his feet. “What about you?”
She smiled, but the expression didn’t reach her eyes. “I’ll be fine. Like you said, we’ve still got time. Go. Before Cynna leaves and you can’t find her.”
Warmth and need and hope pulsed through Nick’s chest. His hands grew sweaty all over again, but this time not with apprehension. With anticipation. And at the first thought of Cynna, he knew exactly where she’d gone. Knew he’d always be able to find her because she held his heart.
“I’ll come back,” he said. “We’ll figure this out.”
“Yes,” Isadora said softly as he flashed from the room. “Someday maybe we will. But not tonight.”
Cynna knelt in front of the remembrance stones in the field behind what was left of her parents’ home on the outskirts of Kyrenia and brushed the dirt and leaves from her parents’ names.
Moonlight shone down, enough light to illuminate the pale pink, gray, and white flowers that bloomed around the stones year round.
Asphodel. The ghostly wildflower grew around all the remembrance stones of the dead in Argolea. Food for the souls of the deceased, her mother had once told her. She’d always found it morbid that life should spring from death. But tonight that thought eased the pain she was feeling. If only a touch.
Shuffling sounded behind her, and without looking, she knew Nick had found her. Knew because no one else would even think to come out here for her. Not even Delia.
She swiped at her eyes and slowly pushed to her feet. She’d carefully kept the truth from Nick as soon as she’d realized his connection to the Argonauts, but tonight that secret no longer mattered. And maybe if he knew who she really was, he’d stop following her. Because, gods knew, she couldn’t handle being near him after what he’d just done.
“My mother’s name was Andromeda,” she said without turning. “She lived in Argolea most of her life. She knew my father there when he served with the Council of Elders. She was bound to a very powerful ándras at the time who clearly didn’t love her back. She told me once she tried to make him happy, tried to give him sons, but the Fates were never on her side, and he blamed her for that. For what he called her liability. She stayed with him for hundreds of years, even though she was miserable. Divorce, from someone as powerful as him, wasn’t only frowned upon, it wasn’t allowed.”
Nick didn’t say anything, but Cynna told herself that was for the best. The sooner she got through this, the sooner they could be done. In the silence, she stared down at the remembrance stone and her mother’s name, the engraving worn from the weather of the years. Her mother had been gone so long, it was hard for Cynna to call up her image, something that made her heart ache even more.
She swallowed back the pain and forced herself to go on. “He had many affairs, but when she realized he’d been sleeping with her closest confidante, and that the female was pregnant, she couldn’t take it anymore. She left him. My father was her friend, and he helped her escape. But when her husband learned of what had happened, he wasn’t happy. He sent his soldiers to bring her back, only they couldn’t find her. To save face, he publicly announced that she’d crossed into the human realm on a shopping spree and was killed by a pack of daemons.”
“Cynna,” Nick finally said after several seconds, “are you saying—”