Another blow of dragonflame ignites the sky, threading down the clefts between the paths, warming my skin with its luminous heat—the blaze of light making the ice look like it’s burning.
But not just that.
The pale remnants of otherwise invisible runes sketched into the pillars glow. Runes that cast the terracotta stone in a glamour of frosty ice.
Runes only visible because of the dragonflame.
Frowning, I look up, watching the Sabersythes wrestle above. Again skimming so close their spear-headed tails threaten to slash through the dome as they tussle for dominance.
“Do you have something to hide, Moonbeam?”
Her huffed response comes almost instantly—brought to me on an icy breeze. Like she’s standing right beside me. “What an absurd assumption.”
I don’t miss the nervous hitch to her voice. A rasp I’ve heard only once before.
When I flicked the lid on my weald back when I found her in the prison cell, revealing a bulb of Rygun’s dragonflame I used to ignite the mended wound on her head.
I squeeze my eyes shut, threading my hands behind my neck and gripping tight. “Then why did you run?”
A beat of silence.
Another spill of fire.
Another crack in my heart.
“I thought you enjoyed hunting me down?”
It’s presented as a jest, but I see it for what it really is:
A distraction.
“Or was that a lie, Your Majesty?”
No.
Elluin used to hide in the jungle, her playful sounds echoing through the trees.
I used to chase her.
Catch her.
Make love to her.
This is different. I’m now certain she’s hiding something—building her walls sky-high.
It’s getting lonely on the other side.
I stalk forward, look left and right, drawing deep breaths of the air laced with her scent—finding it stronger to the left. “I’ve hunted your spirit for one hundred and twenty-three phases, Raeve. Forgive me if I’m a bit jaded.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what I said,” I grit out, charging through troves of mist.
Exactly.
Fucking.
That.
“Show yourself. Now, Raeve. Or I’ll crumble these pillars and you’ll have nothing to hide behind.” I pause, splaying my hand against one, a clash of robust words sitting in my chest like boulders. “They may look like ice, but I assure you, they’re not. I could turn them to dust in a heartbeat.”
Though my voice is big, it’s pitched with a desperate, hopeful plea.
A beg.
She’s probably picturing me on my knees, and perhaps that should bother me. It doesn’t. I’d spend eternity looking up at her if she’d only fucking let me.
“Okay,” she whispers—so quiet.
So loud.
My heart hitches from a hook of hope, though I’m certain I heard her wrong.
“Okay?”
“Close your eyes first.”
Four small words never felt so heavy.
So crushing.
They sit on my chest like mountains as I cast my stare to the sky for a long, agonized moment, looking at the moon almost directly above, watching the Sabersythes blow their flames while they wrestle through the dim. Wishing for a reality where she could be as vulnerable with me as I am with her—her words from the cell a haunting echo in my ears.
Not until you turn around.
It’s like watching Slátra fall apart all over again, feeling that crumbling grief inside my chest as the pieces scattered right when she was taking on such sturdy shape.
But my hope is a flame that’ll never blow out. Not when it comes to her. She could sink me to the bottom of the Loff, and it’d still burn like a sun.
Leaning back, I tip my head against the ice and squeeze my eyes shut. “They’re closed for you, Raeve …”
Small flapping things swarm through my chest while I wait, for better or for worse.
Broken or whole.
Wanting.
Loving.
I feel her presence before I hear her, the hairs on my arms lifting as her lips brush my temple, so featherlight I’m almost certain I imagined it. But then her hands are threading through my beard, tipping my head to the side.
Her lips press against my neck, mining a gravelly sound from deep inside my chest—the kiss so real I know it’s not a dream.
“You’re here,” I murmur, a tremble rattling through me. Like I just dislodged a ghost from my bones and set it free, scrubbing some of the weight from my chest that was packed tight from phases and phases of dreams that felt so real.
That never were.