The pain.
She’s just like Slátra. Just as broken.
What I wouldn’t do to help her feel whole again. To piece her back together, much the same as I did her dragon. Weathering the cuts to my flesh. The frostbite. The endless fucking regressions when the entire thing would crumble and I’d have to start all over again.
And again.
And again.
Keeping her tucked close, I move with her, breath stilling when she settles her head on my chest like she means to stay, braiding my heartstrings into a perfect rope she tugs.
Forcing myself to relax again, I graze my fingers up and down the silky skin at the small of her back—maneuvered by lures of the past.
She shivers against me in the way she always did, deepening my grave with another shoveled scoop.
It’s an effort not to groan. To break away and smash my fist into a wall until my knuckles bleed.
I should’ve let her walk away rather than pretending I’m okay with this.
But I’m weak.
Soft hearted.
I drift my touch up the side of her long, elegant neck, and her entire body trembles, melting against me, our fingers interlacing like a quiet dance of their own.
“Your hands know me,” she whispers.
“Yes,” I murmur against her hair. “Know you, crave you, worship you.”
Her breath hitches.
I could go on. Tell her our bodies clash like they were made to tangle for eternity. That I could spread her in the mist and make her body sing. Have her unravel in seconds from a few tender touches coupled with a nuzzled nip to her neck, just below her ear.
I’d mulch her enemies with my bare hands to see those dimples. Or at the very least, pave a bloody path for her to slaughter them herself.
I was living an eternal solitude, more than prepared to spend forever feasting on her memory, yet here she is, fully intent on erasing me like a stain. Despite knowing—at least in part—what we had.
What we were.
History is repeating itself all over again, and it makes me want to rip the fucking world in two. Crack it open in hopes of finding the answers to the heartbreaking riddle of …
Her.
A deeper beat pounds at the air—
Folk scream, and my stare whips up at the same moment a large Sabersythe plummets from the sky, straight toward the dome.
A buck, based on his heavily spiked tail.
He spreads his wings and scoops around, giving us his back, looking toward a second Sabersythe now charging him from above—jaw cranked so wide I can see the churn of fire welling on the back of its tongue.
Fuck.
Folk drop, flattening to the ground. I tuck Raeve behind me as a plume of dragonflame pours across the dome, preparing to catch it should my blood-runes fail.
The ruddy blaze clamors against my shield, volcanic heat boiling my blood until I’m certain my organs are mush— The beast bites down, gnashing the air, and a cool breath of relief fills my lungs when they churn into a skyward chase—the smaller beast luring the bigger one to court her closer to the moons.
I spin, heart plunging as I scan the now-empty dance floor, screaming folk still ducking beneath tables or clustering at the base of frosty sculptures. Raeve nowhere to be seen.
Like she vanished.
My heart resumes its rampant beat when my stare latches onto the slab of shadow between two ice pillars. The entry to the maze.
Raeve peeks around the corner, her gaze cast on the retreating dragons. Almost like she’s … hiding from them.
Something fierce rises inside me like a boil of liquid flame, setting every cell on edge.
Raeve doesn’t hide. Not unless she’s got something to hide.
I frown, studying the tightness around her eyes, her blanched knuckles a tribute to her crushing grip on the ice, certain I’m peering through a looking glass to something that wasn’t meant for me. But I’ve seen it now.
I’ve fucking seen it.
Her eyes widen, face pales. She inches deeper into the maze before she spins on her heel and sprints out of sight moments before another flare of dragonflame ignites the sky. All but confirming my suspicions.
Something cold and jagged slides through my chest, and I chase—weaving through a tangle of thin paths pressed between pillars of ice that reach for the moons above. Following the intangible path of her butterberry scent.
I take a sharp left that’s a dead end, dragging my hand across the frosty wall, inhaling her on the tips of my fingers. Like she ran in here, slapped her hand against the wall when she realized there’s no way out, then turned around and sprinted back the other way.
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.