A very big part of me still believes it. Refuses to accept that what we had was light and flimsy enough to scrunch up and toss in the bin. And perhaps that makes me weak. Soft of heart. Incompetent—just like Pah used to say.
He proved me right too many times before I took his head.
Yet here I am again, standing stationary while Raeve dances around me with my soft heart in her fucking hands, dripping blood all over the floor. Here I am again, looking at her like she crafted the world with a few whispered words, every sweep of her eyes twisting that jagged weapon lodged in my chest. Only this time, I’m not blind or in denial.
This time, I fucking see.
She’s hurting. Lost someone. Maybe more than one. She thinks she doesn’t deserve … this.
Us.
That if she opens her heart and lets me in, something bad will happen.
It most certainly will, but what she doesn’t see is that her love bolsters me. Strengthens me. When she shines that light my way, nothing can hurt me.
Nothing.
“Dance with me,” she pleads, grabbing my right hand. She wraps herself around me, giving me a nudge so I untangle from her hold like she’s the lead.
Feels fitting.
She coaxes me to twist with her to the music’s droning tide, and I give her the bare minimum, turning as she drags me about the floor, feeling like I’m standing in the path of an impending moonfall—too transfixed on its plummeting beauty to step to the side.
To save myself.
She spins into my arms this time—so close.
So unbearably far away.
It’s tempting to accept this scrap she’s offering. To lean in and embrace this “goodbye to Elluin” Raeve seems to think I want.
“You did request a dance, correct?” she asks, looking up at me from beneath a thick fan of black lashes.
“Correct.”
“Doesn’t look like it,” she jests, brows raised. “You have to actually move your body. Shocking, I know.” She tosses herself free in a churn of silver tendrils and whisking fog, boasting much of her body to a loose ring of curious onlookers who’ve gathered behind my fence of austere guards to watch her dance.
They look at her like the enigma she is—more untouchable than Clode—while she moves as though oblivious to their stares, lost in her swirl of make-believe.
I clear my throat, the song taking on a slower, deeper drone.
She spins toward me, tripping on a tendril.
I dip low and catch her just before she hits the ground, my arm bracing her bare back, our noses almost touching.
Her wide eyes lock with mine as she puffs a breath upon my face …
The celebration falls away. The crowd.
The song.
There’s nothing but a pair of big azure eyes, our tangling exhales, and the welcome weight of her in my arms.
A fucking moon could fall and I wouldn’t notice.
Her gaze drifts to my mouth, and my heart becomes a ferocious beast pounding for release. Begging me to crush the barrier between us and kiss her, like throwing myself to a nest of Sabersythes to be torn apart—slowly.
Painfully.
“Was this a bad idea?” she rasps.
“Yes.”
Very.
She squeezes her eyes shut, and I can almost feel her mind ticking before she spears me through with that glacier gaze. “We’ll stop. I’m sorry. I wanted to give you—”
“The perfect goodbye?”
She opens her mouth, closes it, a flash of tender embarrassment staining her beautiful cheeks.
I don’t want the perfect goodbye. I want to say hello to Raeve—whoever that is. Whoever’s tucked beneath that hardened exterior, I want to know her.
Be around her.
Love her.
“I’ll go,” she whispers. “I’m sor—”
I move, hearing her sharp intake as I throw her into a spin in tune with the song’s crescendo. She stills, eyes twin pools of blazing blue wide enough to swallow me whole.
“Backing out of a battle, Prisoner Seventy-Three?” I ask, forcing a fake smile. “I didn’t take you as a quitter, but perhaps I was wrong?”
She’s silent for a beat before another smile breaks across her face—so big and bold her dimples pucker again. She smooths her features, clears her throat, then lifts her chin. “Perhaps I don’t want to dance with you after all.”
“Lies,” I growl, then spin her back into my arms, crushing her body against mine. Perfectly.
Too perfectly.
“You want to dance with me, Raeve.”
You want to love me, too. But you’re in the way of yourself.