Page 63 of Feathers and Thorns

“I thought you might forgive the intrusion, considering I saved your life,” he replied, stepping toward her.

She held her breath as he approached, not daring to move, like a bronze sculpture she had once seen her father uncover.

“I thought you could enjoy a moment of peace before we return to the havoc my father unleashed,” he said in his soft tenor. He brushed her cheek again, and she allowed herself to lean into his hand.

“What happened?” She remembered fighting Corvus’s sergeant, but everything else had gone hazy.

“You passed out from blood loss. I brought you to a fabric shop.”

“You left,” Soren said flatly, her anger returning. She would not treat him like a hero when he had ditched them all at the first sign of real danger.

“You were well guarded,” was his clipped response.

“The whole point was to have cover from higher ground!” Soren lifted her hands in exasperation.

“I did not want to leave you.”

His admission surprised her but did not excuse his actions. She opened her mouth to say as much, but he continued, cutting her off before she could begin to berate him.

“I saw some of my father’s men attacking a group of women outside the square—a mother and two daughters.” He paused, unsure of how to word the next part eloquently. “Anyway, I dispatched them,” he said, clearing his throat.

Soren just looked at him, her mouth opening and closing like a beached fish.

“I came back for you as soon as I could,” he said, his tone softer now. “I should never have left.” He shook his head. There was a pain behind his eyes that she couldn’t quite register.

Soren looked at their surroundings. It was so peaceful here, calm. She understood then what he was doing. This dreamscape was a kindness.

“I’m dying, aren’t I?” Soren asked quietly, her brown eyes searching his.

The question caught Rook off guard, her blunt words nearly knocking him off his feet.

“Your wounds are deep,” he replied cryptically, avoiding her gaze. “I stitched your calf to the best of my abilities with the store’s supplies, but I foolishly used the last of the healing vials on the woman’s youngest child.” He ran a hand through his hair, looking to the ground beneath his feet. “I will never forgive myself for the pain I have caused you.”

Soren knew he was referring to more than her current dire situation. She could see the battle he fought within himself to express his meaning.

“I never wanted to cause you harm. I only wanted to escape Adriel. I was selfish and should have never kept the truth of your father from you.”

Soren’s throat tightened like the hangman’s noose Jai had just barely avoided, and she looked at him through misty eyes.

She could feel the life slipping from her, like an autumn leaf detaching itself from its home tree, only to drift away on a soft current to places unknown.

She stepped forward, taking in the lines of Rook’s face. He inhaled sharply as she reached up to run a hand along the exposed section of collarbone peeking out from the neckline of his buttoned tunic. The skin was warm beneath her fingertips, and she longed to kiss it like she had so many nights ago. Their life together at the manor had been endlessly infuriating and terrifying, but somehow, it was simultaneously some of the best moments in her life.

What they had was volatile and dangerous, a cruel fate and a wicked trick, but it was theirs.

Soren often wondered if the Maker above had enjoyed playing with his creation’s emotions. Placing slivers of hope into their little black hearts to bring them back to life, only to cut away every ounce of happiness with the precision of a healer’s blade.

“Little bird,” Rook whispered softly, shoving away her negative thoughts with a steady hand. He reached up and clasped her palm in his, and the back of her hand was pressed against his rapidly beating heart. Soren knew this was still a dream, but it felt so real. He felt so real.

Her eyes drifted from his hand to the hollow of his throat, to the sharp line of his jaw, landing in the cold winter of his eyes. It was in this moment that she knew she loved him. She loved every battered, bruised, and broken part of the dark soul that he had kept hidden from the world. She saw the truth of him behind his perfect porcelain mask. She saw the boy who had longed for his father’s acceptance, the teenager who had lived through unimaginable horrors, and the man who fought every day to cage his demons.

She saw a light in him that his father and Corvus had tried so hard to snuff out. The single beat of a new star shining through the black of night. She saw the kind soul and warm heart that had, for many years, been buried in a shroud of ice. Every moment, every touch, every quiet whisper curled up together in their library had slowly melted away his frozen walls.

She had hated him, had wanted to kill him even, to smother him while he slept to escape her bounds and save her friends. He had once been the bane of her existence yet had somehow become her reason for living.

The grief from her father’s death had turned her into a hollowed-out version of her previous self. The loss had snuffed out all joy and color from her life, leaving her to drown in an ocean of gray.

Day after day, night after night, she had gone through the motions to get by. She had shut out her friends and had become selfish and uncaring. She had closed herself off from feeling for other people to protect her own heart. The more she cared, the more she had to lose, and she did not think she would survive another loss like the one of losing her father. Baz and Enara had been so patient with her and had tried everything to get the old Soren back, but they didn’t understand that the old Soren had died along with her father.

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