Page 94 of The Dragon Queen
My arm circled her shoulders, and I brought her into me, her head moving to my shoulder, her hair across my chest. My lips found her temple and pressed a kiss there, feeling her relax even more in my embrace.
We lay like that for a long time, both at peace.
“I know you escaped Bahamut, but does that mean you’re no longer cursed?”
“I assume so.”
“But why would he release you?”
“If he doesn’t release the curse, then I still have command of the dead. And I’m sure he wouldn’t want that. As much as he’d like to continue to torture me in some way, he can’t have it both ways. He’d have to choose—and I’m sure that’s what he chose.”
She continued to let my body support her, her fingers locking with mine, little red marks on her skin from all the places I’d kissed her too hard.
I did my best not to look at the scars on my chest, but it also caught my peripheral, the black color distinct against my fair skin. It was like a fire had burned inside me, broken through my ribs, and reached the surface. I should just be grateful to be alive and have my soul, but it still pained me to carry it, to know someone had permanently marked me without my consent. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Her mind seemed to have drifted off, relaxed now that the stress had faded. “And what was it?”
“Where would you like to live?”
“I already said I assumed we would live in the Southern Isles?—”
“And that didn’t answer my question,” I said. “What doyouwant?”
She turned her head to look up at me. “I want to be with you, wherever that may be. What do you want, Talon? You have a kingdom across the sea that’s been in your blood for dozens of generations. I assumed you’d want to rule it.”
I looked away. “I’ve never given it much thought.” Because ruling it had never been an option.
“Then you should do that now.”
“It’s hard to imagine leading people I feel so disconnected from.”
“You’ve been living elsewhere for decades. It’s reasonable to feel disconnected.”
“And it’s hard to imagine it without my family there. They’ll always haunt me—whether they’re at peace or not.”
“I think having you reclaim the throne that’s in your blood would fill them with pride and happiness. The legacy can continue when your son comes of age, and it can pass on to the next generation…and the next.”
“That’s something I’ve never understood. Why the line of succession can only pass through sons and not daughters.” If Calista and I had a daughter together, I knew she would be a deadly combination of the two of us, a woman with more spine than most men combined. “If my eldest child were a daughter, the crown would belong to her.”
Her eyes softened with her lips. “It sounds like that’s what you want—to be king.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s okay to want it, Talon. Why do you deny yourself?”
I looked away. “I don’t need to remind you that the kingdom fell because I failed to protect it.”
“You warned your father of the treason. You told him your suspicions and he dismissed you. He was the king of the Southern Isles, not you. He was the one who failed your family and your people. You take on a responsibility that doesn’t belong to you.” She turned and propped herself up on her elbow to look at me head on. “A mistake you never would have made.”
The belief in her stare was so potent it made me look away.
“You would be the best king there ever was, Talon. Look at all you’ve accomplished.”
I continued to avoid her stare.
Her eyes were locked on the side of my face, heat burning into my flesh.
“If that’s what we decide, that means you’ll rarely see these lands. You’ll be apart from your uncle, the only family you have left. Scorpion Valley is in your veins as much as the Southern Isles is in my mine. Doesn’t seem right that you would sacrifice all that so I can be king of a land you don’t call home.”