I wiggled my toes in the sand once more. “I asked him about that.”
“This is my surprised face,” Kieran murmured, and when I looked at him, his expression was the same as always. Bored with a hint of amusement.
My lips twitched despite the insanity of our conversation as I turned back to the sparkling, sun-drenched midnight water. “He told me he believed it was the Atlantian blood in him, recognizing mine.”
“And you felt the same?”
I nodded. “Is that a possibility?”
“Possibly,” he said after a moment. “But I don’t think that’s the case. I think it’s something deeper than that. Something intangible, far rarer and stronger than bloodlines and even the gods. Something powerful enough that it has ushered in great change in the past.”
Tensing, I had a feeling I didn’t want to know what he thought. That whatever it was would be even more earth-shattering than what he’d already shared. It’d be words given life that I wouldn’t be able to control.
“I think you’re heartmates.”
Chapter 24
Heartmates.
Kieran didn’t elaborate on what that meant, and I didn’t ask for more information. I’d never heard of such a thing, and I didn’t want to.
Processing the idea of Casteel caring about me was complicated enough without adding yet another intangible element to it.
But what Kieran had said—all of it— lingered throughout breakfast, robbing the food of all taste as my gaze kept roaming back toward the white banners hanging on the walls of the dining hall, spaced six feet apart. In the center of each of them was an emblem embossed in gold, shaped like the sun and its rays. And at the center of the sun was a sword lying diagonally atop an arrow.
I knew I was staring at the Atlantian Crest.
We ate at a narrow table in a dining room that’d once served the people of Spessa’s End but now was empty except for Quentyn, who had brought the eggs, crispy bacon, and biscuits out to us when we arrived. He chatted with Kieran, his energy from the night before seeming just as high. I tried to focus on the conversation, aware of how different this was from the last time Kieran and I had shared food. Quentyn didn’t ignore me or treat me with barely contained dislike. If he knew I had once been the Maiden, he didn’t care. And that was, well…it would’ve been something to revel in if I didn’t keep looking around to see if Casteel appeared, or if my mind wasn’t so wrapped up in what Kieran had said.
I couldn’t focus on the fact that Casteel may care for me. I couldn’t even dwell on the revelation that I’d moved past the stage of caring for him quite some time ago. There was no amount of time or space for me to even come to terms with any of that and what it meant.
What I turned over and over in my mind was the reality that Casteel needed to feed, and if what Kieran had said was true, I needed to convince him to do so from someone else or…I needed to feed him.
But there really wasn’t an option between the two. Naill and Delano knew I was half-Atlantian, and if the others, whoever else was here, didn’t know, they would learn soon enough. Casteel feeding from someone else wouldn’t exactly convince anyone of our intent to marry, would it?
It would have to be me.
My stomach dipped as the bite of bacon scratched its way down my throat. Would I be okay with that? I thought of what it had been like when he’d bitten me before, and I picked up the glass of water, nearly downing the entirety of it. It wouldn’t exactly be a hardship. It would be…
Gods, it would be intense.
Nothing like when Lord Chaney had bitten me. Nothing like a Craven’s bite.
“The one thing I’m not looking forward to is traveling back through the mountains,” Quentyn said, drawing me out of my thoughts. I’d discovered when I first saw him in the bright lamplight that he was fair-haired, not blond-white like Delano, but more…golden. He was young, slim as a reed and already taller than me. There was a delicacy to his features, one that drew the eye and held it, and I imagined the beauty in the lines of his face would only increase as he got older. His eyes were a vibrant shade of amber, just like Casteel’s, but curved upward at the outer corners in a way that made his eyes seem like he was always smiling.
“Yeah, I’m not looking forward to that part of the trip either,” Kieran agreed.
“Are you talking about the Skotos Mountains?” I asked, glancing toward the doors for what probably had to be the hundredth time since Kieran and I had sat down.