Chapter 160

Lila

The library should have felt safe. But the tall shelves rose like sentinels, stacked high with volumes standing guard.

My feet had taken me here. Not to read, my head was too foggy for that, but to be somewhere quiet, far from the council chamber or the royal wing or Damon.

The guards followed anyway, of course. I could hear them posted just inside the doors, their hushed voices a constant reminder that even here, I wasn’t alone.

I wandered between the aisles, fingertips trailing along spines worn with age and use. It was something better to focus on than the gnawing noise in my head.

That, I couldn’t escape: the nobles’ gossip, Damon’s lies, Ruby’s perpetual absence. Every thought wound back to the same conclusion, and every time I landed on it, my chest ached sharper.

He’s never going to let me go.

The truth settled heavy inside me. Whatever hope I’d clung to of being free had rotted. The palace wasn’t a home. It was a cage, and I was too weak to break down the doors no matter what I said to Damon.

The dizziness started as a faint sway under my feet. I gripped the edge of a nearby table, the carved wood pressing into my palm, but it wasn’t enough. My knees buckled and the room tilted sharply.

I folded before I could stop it.

My shoulder struck the side of the table, then the cold floor caught me. The scent of old dust rose up, dry and sharp, making my throat tighten. My cheek pressed against the floor.

For a moment, I just lay there, breathing in shallow bursts. My fingers twitched weakly against the floorboards. The faint pounding in my ears drowned out the muted scrape of the guards’ boots as they moved closer.

“Lila!” The voice was unmistakable as Ronan.

He dropped to a crouch beside me, one hand hovered above my shoulder, hesitating, before settling there with a steady, grounding weight.

“What happened?” His voice wasn’t sharp like Damon’s when he worried, it was low but threaded with a tenderness he couldn’t quite hide.

“I’m fine,” I tried to say, but the words came out as a weak exhale, barely formed. My lips trembled with the effort.

His gaze swept over me, assessing: he took in the pale flush on my cheeks, the tremor in my hands, the sluggish rise and fall of my chest. His brows drew together, and the muscle in his jaw ticked.

“You’re not fine,” he said quietly. “Can you sit up?”

I tried. My elbows slipped on the polished stone, and I would’ve gone back down if not for his quick hands, bracing me under the arms.

The shift made the blood rush hot to my head, and I closed my eyes until the spinning slowed.

Ronan stayed close, his hands steady on my shoulders until he was sure I wouldn’t fall again. He shifted, sliding one arm behind my back.

“I just…” My voice faltered, thin and raw. “…needed to breathe.”

Behind us, the guards hovered at the edge of the aisle, unsure whether to step closer. Ronan shot them a glance over his shoulder, a silent command that kept them where they were.

His focus came back to me almost immediately. “Slow breaths,” he said, his tone quiet but firm. “In through your nose, out through your mouth.”

It was ridiculous, the idea of him teaching me how to breathe, but I tried. I closed my eyes to focus.

My breaths came shallow at first, shaky and uneven, until his presence beside me, solid and unmoving, began to steady them.

The floor wasn’t cold anymore. Either own body heat had seeped into it, or maybe I’d just gone numb.

I opened my eyes again, and his were already on me. Then, with a quick glance toward the library doors, he guided me up.

The guards hovered nearby; I felt their eyes like a draft.

“Give us the aisle,” Ronan said over his shoulder, voice even, commanding. “You’re posted at the entrance. No one comes in unless I call.”

They stepped back out of sight.

“Come,” Ronan murmured to me, and angled us deeper between the stacks. He set me at the end of a narrow row and then pulled a heavy armchair from a nearby table, pivoted it to face the shelf rather than the aisle, and eased me into it.

The chair swallowed me whole, the leather was cool against my overheated skin. He shrugged out of his cloak and settled it around my shoulders.

“Better?” he asked quietly.

I nodded, though my hands trembled where they clutched the cloak’s edge. I felt tucked into a pocket, hidden sight.

Ronan took up a place in the aisle between me and the doors, half-turned toward me, half-turned toward whoever might appear.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I blurted, before I could second-guess the words. My voice was thin, scraped raw.

Ronan’s head tilted slightly, his expression unreadable. “Do what?”

“Stay here.” The words cracked in the middle. I looked down at my hands, trembling again despite myself. “I can’t stay here, Ronan. Not when I know he’ll never let me go.”

I could feel his gaze on me, measuring, weighing.

“I’m not asking for a walk in the gardens or a few hours without guards,” I went on, my voice gaining a jagged edge. “I’m asking you to get me out. Away from the palace. All of this.”

His jaw tightened, but he didn’t look away. “You’re asking me to betray my King.”

I let out a shaky laugh, bitter and without humor. “Betray him? He’s already betrayed me.”

The words felt dangerous the moment they left my mouth, but I couldn’t take them back. I didn’t want to.

For a moment, Ronan didn’t speak. “You don’t understand what you’re asking.”

“I do.” I lifted my head and met his eyes. The flicker of conflict there told me I’d hit a nerve. “I understand exactly. You’re the only one who can help me, and if you won’t…” My throat closed around the rest.

He stepped closer.

“I swore an oath to protect the King,” he said quietly. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll stand by while you…” He trailed off, jaw flexing.

“While I what?” I whispered.

His gaze softened, the faintest shift. “While you fade.”

Something in my chest ached at that, sharp enough to steal my breath.

“You think I’m fading now?” My voice cracked, heat pricking behind my eyes. “If I stay here, I’ll be gone completely. You’ll wake up one day and I’ll be –” My voice broke entirely, and I pressed a hand to my mouth to stop it.

For the first time, Ronan’s composure cracked. He reached down and gently pulled my hand away from my face, holding it between both of his like he could keep it from shaking by sheer will.

“Lila,” he said, and my name sounded different from him. “If I help you leave, there’s no undoing it. No coming back. It will cost you your name. Again.”

I searched his face for hesitation. There was plenty of it. But there was something else too that had been growing quietly in the space between us.

“I don’t care,” I said, meaning every word. “I just want to be free.”

Roman closed his eyes for a moment, like the decision cost him something. When he opened them again, there was no hesitation left.

“I’ll find a way,” he said finally.

I nodded once, not trusting my voice.

His grip tightened briefly before he let go, stepping back, the soldier’s mask sliding over his face again.

“If anyone comes,” he said, “you’re reading.”

“I can’t focus,” I admitted.

He reached to the shelf above my head and slid out a thin book at random, laying it open on my lap. His knuckles brushed mine; accident or not, I didn’t care. The contact steadied me.

“Then pretend,” he said. “Just for a little longer.”

I nodded, and he gave one short nod back like warriors give before battle.

Looking down at the book, the title read ‘Goderick’s Guide to Vanishing Politely’.