“This strange chemistry, you say?” he asks, the intensity of his gaze sizzling a hole in my soul that makes it hard to breathe.
I shrug.
He reaches across the table, fingers brushing against mine as he grabs hold of the mug. I let my own hand loosen, and he brings the vessel to his lips, drawing from the opposite side while he studies me over the rim.
The ball in his throat rolls.
Again.
Again.
He sets the drink down with a heavy thump. “It has taken many phases to secure The Burn and build an armada almost strong enough to rival my kin, who’d already dug their talons deep within the stone and obsidian thrones by the time I found incentive to take the bronze. A war with Cadok or Tyroth will be catastrophic, but it’s only a matter of time. My brothers deserve the same mercy my pah received, and it will be served,” he says, voice thick with a daunting tone that casts a chill across my skin. “But it will be costly.”
Silence reigns while I chew on his words.
“You don’t mean gold …”
“I mean innocents,” he growls, and my blood turns to ice.
“Hire an assassin. Eliminate them without flair rather than a violent overthrow. I volunteer. Heartily. I’ll even do it for free.”
Then dance on their fucking corpses.
The tic in Kaan’s jaw pulses, a line forming between his brows. “There is no honor in this in our culture. A battle is either waged with brute force or between two Oahs upon a nullifying battlefield—though my brothers would never agree to that. Not since Rygun and I became Daga-Mórrk.”
My eyes widen, brows rise as my heart skips a beat.
Another.
That explains the weald.
The strength.
The—
“You’re—”
“Most importantly,” he interrupts, “they hold a strong, steady alliance forged in the womb that is unshakable. Dangerous. Deadly.”
I hear the silent message threaded between the rumbled statement. To attempt to take on the weight of either kingdom would mean war with both.
“A battle would puncture our world and scatter the skies with many more moons,” he says, dropping his voice to a haunting grind, his next words a sizzled swipe at my nerves. “It would pour flames across flesh. Drown many. Suffocate more. As you pointed out, a great number of those conscripted in The Shade’s and The Fade’s armadas are still younglings who should be running around barefoot, laughing and enjoying life. Less fluent than seasoned warriors, they would be the first to die—”
“Stop.”
The word belts out of me so fast it scrapes the back of my throat, a strangled breath pouring into my lungs.
I break from his gaze. Gather the embers of his scorching declarations and cart them into my frosty expanse, shoving them down a hole in the ice where I don’t have to look at them.
Attention stabbed at the table, I keep shoving …
Shoving.
He leans forward, elbows resting against the stone, finger sliding beneath my chin and tilting my head, forcing me to meet his softening stare. “War is messy, Moonbeam. Even when it’s raised for the right reasons, no one truly wins until eons have passed, memories have faded, and all the hurt and loss starts to blur—”
“I understand,” I grind out. “You can stop.”
My eyes scream the word my mouth doesn’t shape.
Please.
The moment stretches while he searches my eyes with an intensity that threatens to dig beneath my skin and skim across my hardened heart.
“I’m not going to kill you, if that’s what you’re waiting for.”
The corner of his mouth kicks up again, and it’s like staring into the eye of a storm. So hauntingly beautiful you almost forget you’re in danger.
Almost.
“I’m honored. Let me know if you change your mind.”
Doubtful. I’ve actually decided his death might be one of the greatest losses this world could suffer. Not that I’m going to tell him that, of course. This … whatever between us will grow into a ravenous beast unless I starve it to death—I’m certain.
“Hungry, Raeve?” There’s a tender hopefulness in his warm gaze that grates. “Would you like to share a meal with me?”
Clearing my throat, I pull away from his touch. “No. I don’t think I should,” I murmur, reaching for his málmr, feeling the air stiffen as I lift it over my head. “Thank you for lending me this. I very much appreciate what you did for me in the crater.”
I don’t go into more detail. Certainly don’t speak of the Fate Herder or the Sól’s odd foretellings, not wanting to open that messy topic up for inspection as I untangle the loop of leather from my hair, the world a rumbling roar outside. I dangle the precious pendant between us, looking up into hard eyes that still the beat of my heart.