Embers and blackened bark rained onto the field. Through the smoke, Niamh couldn’t see Kit anymore. A desperate, impotent feeling welled up within her, somewhere between rage and despair. For as long as she could remember, she had been assured of death’s predictability. It was not meant to cheat or surprise her. It was not meant to come and leave her behind.
She was not supposed to outlive the people she loved.
Kit couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be. He couldn’t be. She refused to believe it—not until she saw him.
Niamh did not slow her horse as they barreled into the dueling grounds, a flurry of mud and water and stomping hooves. Shouts of confusion rang out around her—none of them Kit’s. Where was he?
A burning branch snapped off the tree and struck the earth like a fist. Niamh’s mare spooked, darting sideways away from the flames. She lurched in the saddle and gasped. On instinct, she dropped the reins and scrabbled frantically for the pommel as the mare danced beneath her, eager to bolt.
“Whoa!”
Her heart gave an answering lurch.
She knew that voice. Kit.
He emerged from the smoke and snatched the loose reins. The horse stilled and snorted. Her fingers slipped off the pommel, and she very slowly slumped off her seat and into Kit’s shoulder. He glared up at her in furious amazement, then all but shoved her back upright. “What are you doing here? It’s too dangerous.”
“Clearly!”
The king might have missed once, but they would not be so lucky twice. Wind gusted through the field, and the smoke parted like a curtain. Rosa stood between her father and Kit in her ruined wedding dress. Her chest heaved, and electricity still crackled down the length of her arm. Jack and Rosa stared at her and Kit with twinned looks of relief.
It was over—at least for now.
The rain lightened, moment by moment, until Niamh could hear her own ragged breathing and the ends of her hair dripping against the saddle.
“What are you doing here?” Kit repeated.
No words came. She wanted to shake him, or maybe to kiss him. She couldn’t tell at this point. A sob of pure relief escaped her. His face was streaked with ash and rainwater and his eyes were wild. But by some miracle, he was alive. “Saving you from your own terrible decision—again! Gods, Kit. I thought I lost you.”
The anger—the panic—in his expression gave way at last to guilt. “Then why are you crying? You don’t have to mourn me yet.”
Not yet. But she could see now just how close death had come. Beneath the ruined fabric of his sleeve, a jagged scar mottled his upper arm. Her breath snagged in her throat at the sight of it. Rosa had saved his life.
“Rosa,” the king spluttered at last, clearly as outraged as he was impressed. “You could have gotten yourself killed!”
She lifted her chin. “I can’t let you do this.”
The king’s shock slowly rearranged itself into exasperation. “I know you love him. But I promise you, it is not worth it to marry a man whose loyalty lies elsewhere. These wounds heal. I will find you a much better—”
“No. Saints above, I do not love him.” She sounded a little nauseated. “He would have very much displeased me as a husband.”
Kit suddenly looked very weary.
“I have been dishonest with you for many years.” Rosa slowly dismounted from her horse. She leaned against her father, and for the first time, her lips quivered with barely restrained emotion. “I have many things I want to say to you, but not here. For now, will you please let this go?”
“That is the one thing I cannot give you,” he said gravely. “I cannot let them go unpunished for how they humiliated you.”
“Papa, I beg you.” Her voice trembled. “I am tired. Peace is all I ask for on my not-wedding day. That is all I have ever wanted.”
As Niamh took in his hard expression, she understood that he meant what he said. He could not ever truly let it go.
He studied each of them with mounting displeasure. Niamh, a common girl hardly worth his notice. Rosa, his usually stoic daughter, shivering and on the verge of tears. Kit, battered and soaked to the bone. The Prince Regent of Avaland, apparently too stunned to speak at all. For the rest of her life, Niamh would wonder what exactly he saw in their faces that moved him, or which of the Fair Ones had intervened on their behalf. But whatever it was—whether pity or exhaustion or the god Donn himself—slowly, and with great effort, King Felipe laid aside his rage.
“Very well, Rosa.” He wrapped his cloak around Rosa’s shoulders. “If that is what you truly want.”
“Thank you,” Rosa whispered.
All of the affection in his eyes withered when he looked up at Jack and Kit again. Burning in them was a soul-deep resentment. “We will discuss how to move forward from this tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir,” Jack said wanly. “And thank you. I will find some way to make it up to you. I swear it on my life.”
As the king climbed onto the horse and helped Rosa up alongside him, Kit’s grip tightened on the reins of Niamh’s mare. A muscle worked steadily in his jaw as he watched them vanish into the fog.
Beside them, a branch groaned and detached itself from the smoldering trunk. It collapsed onto the earth and shattered into ash. The wind and rain, mercifully, had put out most of the flames, but a swath of grass still sizzled. Jack stared out at it all—the rising smoke and choking steam, the ruined fields with its deep, gashed trenches, the broken branches—and began to laugh.
Kit watched him with a disgusted sort of sympathy. “You’ve gone mad at last.”
“What else can I do?” Jack asked, his arms outstretched over the wreckage. “Everything is ruined. Absolutely everything. I don’t know what to expect anymore. I don’t know what to do.”
Kit held his silence for a moment. “Don’t you have a meeting to go to? That’s a start.”
The two of them regarded each other. Niamh braced for a protest or an argument. But Jack’s expression softened, and a fluttery hope swirled within her. Jack slicked his wet hair back from his face. “I expect it’ll be hours before I make it back at this rate.”
Kit angled his chin toward Niamh. “Come down from there.”
She huffed, sitting up straighter in the saddle. “Is that really how you’re going to speak to me after all this?”
“Please,” he added.
“That’s better.” Niamh swung her leg over, and as she eased herself down from the stirrup, he steadied her by the waist. Through the damp of her gown, his skin was impossibly warm. Kit passed the reins to his brother.
Surprise flickered across Jack’s face. “You expect a young lady to walk in this weather?”
So she was a young lady in his book again. Niamh smiled. “I don’t mind.”
“Very well,” he said reluctantly. He climbed into the saddle. Loftily perched above them, he regarded them with a peculiar expression. “Do I want to know what you are up to?”
Kit patted the horse’s neck absently, clearly avoiding his gaze. “Do you?”
“I suppose not.” Jack rubbed his jaw. “I will be occupied for God knows how long, thanks to you. I cannot stop you.”
Kit nodded tightly. Jack nodded back. Niamh, entirely lost by now, felt as though she was intruding on something.
“Well, then. Good day, Kit.” Jack circled his mount around. “Niamh.”
She startled at the sound of her own name and dipped into a quick curtsy. “Thank you, Your Highness.”
“You might as well call me Jack,” he said wearily.
With that cryptic offer, he rode off toward the city. Niamh stared after him, wondering at how her choices had carried her here: an invitation to call the Prince Regent of Avaland by his given name. It was an honor she would never have the courage to take advantage of.
Then, she remembered his younger brother. They stood together in the middle of a ruined field. Sopping wet. Alone. Kit looked like a drowned cat, but the fabric of his white shirt clung distractingly to his narrow frame.
All she could think to ask was, “Does your arm hurt?”
“No.” As terrible a liar as ever. “Let’s go.”
They set off toward the city. It took two of her strides to match one of his, and he moved with brisk purpose. His jaw was clenched and his eyes were fixed on Sootham. Niamh couldn’t tell if he was angry, and if he was, if he was angry at her. Nerves buzzed within her. There were a thousand things she wanted to say to him. Not a single one of them came to her coherently. Her slippers squelched in the mud and wet grass, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. The silk was too far gone to be saved, and her toes might soon join it at this rate. Her teeth chattered in the cold.
Kit huffed out a breath. “I can’t even offer you my coat.”
“At least you had the good sense to leave the cloak behind,” she said. “I would have never forgiven you if you’d destroyed it—or died in it, for that matter.”
His incredulous stare felt like the press of a blade against her skin. It flustered her horribly, especially when she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
“I owe you yet another apology,” she blurted out. “Your wedding was a disaster, and you nearly died. This is all my fault.”
“I’m still alive, for better or worse,” he said dismissively. “And is it really my wedding if it didn’t happen? I can’t say I had any hopes of it being pleasant to begin with.”
She stopped walking and rounded on him. “But I am sorry.”
She hated how wretched she sounded. But she couldn’t understand how he could forgive her so easily when she hardly knew how to forgive herself. She’d gone behind his back again. She might have been trying to protect him and Rosa both, but she’d done it on her terms.
“I have humiliated you and your family in front of the entire court. And now, everyone knows what has happened between us. You and I will be embroiled in a scandal. I will be the fallen woman who ruined you. A demon, hardly fit to be seen in public with you. A—”
“All right. I think you’re getting carried away now.” He scowled at her. “If you recall, I was the one who set the king off. All you did was hand me a cloak.”
She sniffled. “I’m sorry.”
“I know. You’ve said so at least three times now.” He sighed impatiently but took one of her hands in his. Her whole body warmed at his touch. “I can’t blame you for doing what you had to to get through to me. So I’m sorry, too.”
Niamh blinked through her damp eyelashes. “For what?”
“For pushing you away. What you said the other night … You’re right. I am a coward, and I can rarely find it within me to put my faith in people, even when they’ve proven themselves worthy of it.” In the light streaming through the thinning clouds, he looked so vulnerable. His smile was rueful, almost ashamed. “I’m all thorns.”
“I don’t know about that. I think you’re more like a weed.”
He made a sound she wasn’t sure was a laugh. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Yes! Weeds are … tenacious. They survive against the odds, wherever they land, no matter how many times you cut them down. And sometimes they can be quite beautiful.” Kit watched her with ever-growing amusement. Gods, she was humiliating herself. She needed to stop babbling immediately. “That is how I think of you.”
“Who would have thought? A tailor and a poet.”
“Oh, you’re terrible!” she cried. “I’m trying to be romantic. Let’s see you do better.”
He frowned, clearly unable to back down from even the most ridiculous challenge. “You’re like … a flower. Too delicate for this world.”
“What, you think I don’t belong here?”
“That’s not what I said.” His shoulders curled inward with discomfort. “I … I don’t know what I’m saying. It’s impossible when it comes to you.”
“Excuse me?” Niamh glared up at him. “You’re not so easy to deal with yourself, you know!”
He barreled onward. “Nothing makes sense anymore. My life should have crumbled again, but somehow, I’m still here. I’m still alive. All because of you.”
Where was he going with this? She’d rarely known him to ramble. “That is … good. Right? You sound angry.”
“I’m not angry,” he said, although he really did sound it. “When it comes to you, my thoughts go in circles. None of my words come out right. I can’t explain it. I feel … insane. It’s like you’ve cast a spell on me. Some kind of psychic hold, or—”
“That’s horrible!”
“No … Argh!” He glowered at her. “Don’t you get it by now, you fool? Are you really going to make me say it?”
“Say what?” Her face felt hot, her chest oddly tight. “I can’t read your mind.”
“Fine. Fine. Now listen carefully, because I’m not going to repeat myself.”
He took a deep breath. And when he held her gaze, she saw the truth of what he felt laid bare. What he’d felt, perhaps, from the moment he first saw her. Suddenly, she felt very dense indeed.
“I love you.”
“What?”
“I said I wasn’t going to repeat myself.” There was no bite to his words now. His expression was unbearably earnest. “Marry me. I never got the chance to ask you again yesterday, but I assume you’ve had enough time to think about it by now.”
Niamh burst out laughing, but she teetered on the knife’s edge of tears. Those words stabbed through her with a longing unlike any she’d ever known. One proposal from a man like him was more than she could’ve ever hoped for. But a second, upon being rejected and betrayed and humiliated? No creature on this earth could be so stubborn, so … so …
“That is a cruel joke, Kit Carmine!”
“I’m still not joking.”
He was frowning at her with mounting concern. He was serious. Her eyes welled with tears. She tried to blink them back, but they escaped despite her best efforts. She scrubbed at them, but they slipped down her cheeks faster than she could keep up with.
He cradled her jaw, angling her face up to his. His touch and expression were so uncertain, she couldn’t bear it. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No! It isn’t that.” Niamh curled her fingers weakly around his wrist. Of all her terrible fears, there was one she had yet to vanquish—her constant companion. “I just don’t understand why. You have always seen the heart of me. I have been running, and now that I’ve stopped, I see exactly what was waiting for me. I am afraid to be loved. I don’t know how much time I can give you. Right now, I have more good days than bad. But I may decline. I may leave you suddenly. I don’t want to hurt you that way. It’s not fair to ask you to undergo that kind of pain.”
“I can’t avoid pain. I’m done trying.” He made a soft, frustrated sound and tucked the strand of white behind her ear. “You are so full of life, Niamh. The wide-open way you smile. The way you dance through empty rooms. How you put all of yourself into everything you do. I feel like I’ve lived a thousand years in the time I’ve known you. I feel like I’m awake for the very first time. Even if you were gone tomorrow, even if you took my heart with you when you went, I wouldn’t regret a single moment I’ve spent with you. How could I? You’ve changed me. I will carry you with me forever.”
Now that was the proposal she’d dreamed of as a girl. “I love you, too.”
She stood on her toes and kissed him. His eyes widened, and his mouth was slack against hers as his mind caught up with his body. But then he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight against him. When she finally released him, he regarded her dazedly. “So … Is that a yes?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes.”
It was the easiest decision she’d ever made.