Page 134 of Taken By Touch and Torment

Naturally, that scared the hell out of me.

“I’m ready to sing for you,” she said. “I’ve been listening to this song for an hour. It’s beautiful. Forgive me if I botch the words.”

She smiled, and I sat down in front of her, pulling her trembling hand into mine.

“You sing whatever words you want, baby. They’re hardly what I’m listening for.”

“Close your eyes, please.”

I obeyed. I gently stroked her hand, knowing she was mine, and I was hers. I pretended we lived in a world where that was all that mattered. Where I didn’t fear opening my eyes and her not being there anymore.

Scarlett rose to start the recording over again. She sat back down and gave me her hand again as a piano melody softly trickled through.

When Scarlett began to sing, I worried perhaps I was dying, because my entire life flashed before my eyes. I was back in Crescent Haven, playing with my sisters out in the forest. I was laughing with them as we pointed up at the stars, making up stories about who we were going to be: the dragons we would one day slay, the castles we would live in, the strange and beautiful people we would know.

I was human, as human as I felt watching Scarlett sing that very first time. The day I’d returned to the forest my sisters had been slaughtered in, and I noticed that new life had formed from the ashes—a girl who dreamed as I once had, her feet digging into the same soil that had raised me.

As Scarlett’s voice rose and fell, as multifaceted and complex as her dangerous mind, I saw that constellation of souls and life karma. I saw our etheric selves, intrinsically intertwined, with no hope of ever being free from each other.

I held her hand, grinning so wide my face hurt.

When she finally stopped, I wanted to bend her over my knee for it. I wanted to make her sing for me for an eternity.

“You can open your eyes,” she said.

I opened them and immediately kissed her, holding her face in my hands. She tasted like hope.

I wondered if I tasted like grief to her perfect lips.

“It is a crime you were ever told to stop singing,” I whispered as I pulled back. “A crime against existence itself.”

“I feel the same way about your writing,” she replied. “Promise me you’ll finish that novel, Rune.”

My grin was back, impossible to withhold. This precious girl was all mine, and I couldn’t fathom how Lillian’s bastard son could’ve gotten so lucky.

“I promise,” I said, shifting under that weighted stare. She was the only being in this world capable of cracking me this uncomfortably open.

We spent the rest of the night pretending—pretending Scarlett wasn’t about to leave me, pretending that she wasn’t furious with me because of what I’d withheld from her about Durian’s atrocities.

We laughed, making light of even the most egregious topics. I whispered secrets as the stars grew ever brighter amid the darkness, and Scarlett whispered hers right back. Our darkest thoughts lay bare. The moments we’d felt alone, the moments we’d feared we didn’t belong in this world.

I showed her types of music she’d never heard before, and I told her about my travels all over Ravenia. I lost myself in the light in her eyes, the curve of her smile, her small hand wrapped around mine.

My soul was leaking out of me, and hers out of her, and there was no stopping any of it. Nor did I want to. We were fused at the heart.

She’d roused me from the deepest slumber, and now I couldn’t remember how I’d breathed before her.

But one thing was certain—I wouldn’t be able to breathe after.

“I want to record your voice,” I whispered, when her head was on my chest.

“How does that work? The process of recording?” she asked.

“I have blank spheres. You recite a simple spell to begin recording, and you recite another to stop.”

Scarlett paused, and I listened to her heart pick up a few paces. “Interesting.”

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