“He would always say things. Strange, nonsensical things. How our parents loved me most. How they were ashamed of him. But it wasn’t true. Not at all. In fact, it was quite the opposite.”
He chanced a glance at her. Nixie’s face was enraptured, gazing upon him with a silent intensity. She clung to his every word, and a tale he’d never wanted to relive again he now found rolling easily off his tongue.
“He was more brave than I. A better hunter. A better swordsman. He learned languages quicker. Everything, everything came to my brother quicker. I was silent. Broody—”
“I can hardly imagine that.” Her lips twitched and he chuckled when he realized she teased him.
His chuckle made her have one of her own. Their gazes never wavered, though; the bond between them—such as it was—seemed suddenly infinite.
She closed her eyes first. “Go on.”
Clearing his throat, her brought her hand to his lips, giving the cold fingertips a quick but firm kiss. He’d never liked touch. Never craved it. Not until her. Now it seemed he couldn’t breathe properly if he didn’t at least keep some link between them.
“It was my silence that they misunderstood, though. I was not silent because I had nothing to say. I was silent because I knew too much. I knew that my mother did not love my father. That she’d actually been in love with one of my father’s squires. That she’d known him since infancy and theirs had been a true love match. I knew that my father resented her infatuation with the man—so much so that he kept a revolving door of women in his bedchambers each night. I learned that there was very little truth spoken within my home. And so I kept it to myself. But do not misunderstand, for all that they were flawed, they did love us. They simply did not understand us.”
“That’s very nice of you not to hate them. I think if my father had ever looked at someone else with more favor than me, it might have shattered me.”
Her whispered confession made his heart feel lighter.
“Ah, my pet.” He traced a finger down the velvet line of her cheekbone. “I think you would have been the favorite. How could you not be? The way you look at others. At me.”
Her breathing grew just a tad unsteady. “How…how do I look at you?”
With wonder. Like I am so much more than me. The words burned on his tongue, but he gave her a grim smile instead, deigning not to answer.
“The day I realized my brother’s thoughts,” he continued, burying the stab of conscious he felt at her gentle sigh, “I attempted to warn my father. But it was like”—his gaze turned distant as the memories rolled back like the hands of a clock—“like I was a ghost. Nobody saw me.”
He’d stood in the middle of that great hall, screaming at the top of his lungs for somebody to please look at him. All around had been men and women, drinking and being merry. Sharing plates of food. The room had been alive with the scent of roasted pheasant, rich cheeses, and yeasty breads. Somewhere someone played a lyre very softly.
His father had been dressed in full royal regalia, wearing his crown and smiling down at his friends and peers. His mother right beside him, resplendent in her gown and jewels. Both of them so unaware of the danger.
“Please. Father. Father. Please, listen to me!”
Robin shivered.
“Crispin had slipped the juice of the oleander root into their cups. Right in front of the entire gathering. Smiling at me as he did it. I screamed, Nixie, at the top of my little lungs. Begging them to heed me, but I could not move my legs. I could not run to them. I was locked, frozen with fear, watching as my brother spelled their end. And then they drank.”
“Oh God,” she whispered, covering her mouth, “that’s so horrible.”
“Aye.” He inhaled sharply, blinking until the images scattered. “The dose was so powerful that it only took a sip. He must have mixed it with some sort of fairy potion, because they both looked up at me.”
“I thought they couldn’t see you?”
“They couldn’t,” he nodded in agreement, “not until it was over. Then Crispin let out this horrid, bloody scream. He did it! He’d pointed at me. And that was when I finally saw my brother for who he was. His truth, as it were. In the blink of an eye, he’d altered his appearance, turned his hair brown, his eyes green. I didn’t see the guards coming at me, I was too riveted by the sight of a brother I no longer knew. He was smirking and all I could say was, ‘Brother, what’s happened to you?’ Then I was grabbed.”
He never saw it coming. But somehow Nixie’s lips found his, and though there was enough heat between them to ignite a wildfire, her touch was gentle and soothing. A balm meant to heal, to knit his soul back together again.
There was no tongue, no sounds. Just her soft, sweet, sugary lips.
The kiss didn’t last long, but they were both heaving for oxygen when she broke apart.
“Nixie—”