He was truly a better man than I would have guessed. How could he ever worry that I would hate him? I shook my head before walking toward him, my steps slow and controlled. Thom’s words of his imminent awakening sounded in my head. Now was not a time I needed him to wake. Now, I needed to think. I needed to figure out what was going on.
I was born to defeat Edmund, born to usher in a new age of magic. Ilyan was born to protect me and bring me to serve my true purpose, even if it ended with my death. An image of him from the pillar, his heartbreak as he held my dead body, entered my mind and I stopped a few steps away from him.
I clutched my hand to my chest as the pressure in it built. I knew the second heartbreak was coming and I knew why. I had fallen in love with Ilyan, but the love was wrong. It was a love and devotion in and of itself, but beyond that...
“I’m sorry, Ilyan,” I whispered to his sleeping body, my voice catching on my tears, “but I can’t give you what you want.”
I turned and ran before I had finished speaking. My feet stumbled as I tore across the large space in tears, only to lunge myself into my bunk. I covered myself with as many of the large furs as I could, hoping to dampen the sound I knew was coming before it escaped my lips.
I felt my chest tightening as I fought against it, but I knew it was no use. The tears had reached a peak, and my body curled inwards as I screamed within the shelter of my blankets. I writhed with the overwhelming pain of my emotions, with heartbreak and with loss.
The sight had said that everything that I touched would turn to ash, and this seemed to be no exception. I was in love with, and bonded to my best friend. A man who had been tortured by his Father for loving me, who may or may not remember me, whose very bond with me terrorized my waking and non-waking existence. Ryland meant the world to me, and yet he had begun to actively attempt to break our bond. Even thinking about his words, about his promise to sever the Z?lství, sent more panic through me. I screamed again, desperate to get the emotions out of me.
Nothing about my bond with Ryland brought joy, and that in itself was painful for me. I longed for him, and yet, I was scared of him.
I screamed in an attempt to release my fear and my pain, shoving the blankets into my mouth as I did, hoping to muffle the sound.
The scream opened up a further chasm in my heart. It rent open the feelings I had been hiding, even from myself. The feelings I now knew Ilyan shared.
Everything around me was crumbling again, the weight on my shoulders too much to bear. Bred to die, born to fight, raised to be broken, and always the cause of pain for those I cared about most in the world.
I howled as it all came crashing down on me. I could no longer do it on my own.
“Ilyan!” I called his name as I had become accustomed to doing. I needed his strength, his song. I needed someone to tell me it was going to be okay. Feeling like this, he was the one my heart called to. I don’t know if it was because he was the only one that was left or because he was the only one I felt could truly help me. But he was my Protector, and right then, that was what I needed.
“Ilyan!” I wailed his name knowing he would not come. Knowing that even if he did, I could not give him what he truly wanted.
I wailed louder, his name mixing with my tears, my sobs becoming an uncontrollable monster inside my chest. It clenched, and clawed, and burrowed into me, increasing my howls and my pain.
Everything inside of me was breaking. It was not fair for me to feel so much pain. Not when so much was already placed upon me.
I writhed my body in a foolish hope of getting rid of the pain, but it did not help. I could find no comfort. The blankets of security I had placed around me had become a prison.
I had not even felt the covers lift until I felt long sinewy arms I knew all too well wrap around me, a strong chest coming to rest against my back.
I turned in his arms, my tears changing from those of despair to some of hope. Ilyan laid right next to me, his arms wrapped around me tightly, his magic flaring through me as he calmed me. I looked into his bright eyes, my heart beating much faster than it had ever done before.
He smiled slightly as he carefully moved my tangled hair out of my face. His eyes never left mine. They had that look I had seen during the sight, a burning love that incapacitated me.
My tears had slowed to nothing as I reached up, carefully placing my hand against his face. His skin was soft and smooth. I had never touched him this way before.
“You’re alright,” I gasped out, the words almost washed away with my tears.
“I’m alright,” he affirmed, his accent thicker than I had ever heard it. Ilyan pulled me to him, his lips pressing roughly against my forehead before he buried me into his chest. The scarred chest.
“I will never leave you, Siln?.” His voice caught and I could tell he was crying too.
We stayed like that, my tears falling over his chest, his in my hair, our joy at seeing one another again settling in.