Page 34 of An Empress of Earth & Darkness

She gritted her teeth. “The point is that I would have known about it. I would have known that there was hope in all of this, known how your heart felt. Instead of this…nothingness. This ice. You have done nothing but avoid me, Torin.”

He took a short breath and then glanced out at the city.

“Will you look at me?” Emara’s voice grated against her throat.

Her magic was stirring. The air thickened and somehow managed to get clammier than it already was. Her flames threatened to lick her palms and her wind gathered around them, blowing at their hair.

“Look at me!” she finally screamed.

“I can’t!” he roared back, finally turning. He no longer looked hurt, but devastated. “I can’t look at you because every time I do, I see everything that I ever wanted. I see everything I can’t have. Why don’t you fucking understand that? Yes, I have been avoiding you—because my heart cannot bear to see you.”

He might as well have punched her in the face. She took a stumble back.

But he took a step forward. “My heart bleeds every time I see you. My heart shatters every time your name is mentioned,” Torin seethed, his hair rustling in the newly formed wind. “And I can’t stand the thought of you being married to someone else. It fucking kills me! Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Of course not.” She shook her head as tears blinded her vision. Emara tried to take a few steps towards him, but her stupid legs wouldn’t listen. “Maybe we can go to the prime—”

“And what then?” His hand flew out. “Have your way in court for another time this month? That’s not how politics works in this world, Emara. I think you might have reached the limits of favours from the prime.”

“I have overcome things that people didn’t believe in before. We just have to make them see another way.”

He scoffed. “Another way? And what would that be?”

Anger built in her heart, and she scrunched her fists as tears rolled from her eyes. “This…defeatist attitude is so very un-Blacksteel of you,” she spat.

“Oh?” He turned to face her again. “Are you now an expert in Blacksteels just because you are set to wed my brother? How are the wedding plans coming along, by the way?”

The sting of his comment pierced her heart. “Maybe if I were an expert in Blacksteels I would know how to deal with how pathetic you are being right now.”

“Pathetic?” Irritation finally reached his eyes, screwing them tight. “Is that what you think of me?”

“Are you doing anything to prove otherwise? At least I am acknowledging that we could do something about this. I am trying to think of ways we are not eternally miserable. But you have just accepted that fate, and that is so weak of you.”

He walked towards her slightly, his knuckles strained white. “What would you have me do, Emara? Stand before the prime and beg for them to release me of my commander, of my oath? Because I was going to do that and you stopped me. You told me that I couldn’t. I was going to throw in this whole fucking life because all I wanted was you.” He paused, the pain in his heart reaching the features of his face. “You are all that mattered. I would have run. I would have packed a bag and we could have disappeared. But you couldn’t. And I understand that. I do. I get that you had a lot more to give up. You are the Empress of Air.” He rolled his bottom lip between his teeth. “Gods, Emara, I even stuck around when my father was announcing your engagement to my brother. I watched as Gideon tried his best to court you in front of me. But I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t watch it happen. So what would you have me do?”

Torin had come to her a few days after the winter solstice ball, when she had been cleared by the healers, and he had asked her to go with him—go anywhere in the kingdom—and she had refused him. She had asked for more time. That was all she had seemed to be doing lately, working off borrowed time.

She took a moment before answering him, the stinging in her chest finally reaching her eyes. “All I am asking from you is to…” She stopped herself from speaking and found another way around saying what she really wanted to. “Have patience. Have faith that this will work out. I will find a way.”

He shook his head, his hands falling down by his sides. “You can’t ask me to be patient for something that I will never have.”

Emara could feel the word vomit climb in her throat. “You used to look at me and stop the world with the passion in your eyes.” Her hands and voice shook. “And then when you found out about my blood—about who I really am—my world spun so violently because I couldn’t even fathom a world where you didn’t look at me like that. And now my only option is to believe that you can’t look at me the same because you know who my father is. Is that the reason you won’t fight for this?”

The air around them dampened like a storm was imminent, and the sky turned a darker shade of black-blue.

“Emara, all I do is look at you.” His lips pulled over his teeth, his gaze holding hers in a fiery frustration. “All I do is see you, even when I pray to Thorin to stop such cruelty in my dreams. I dream of you with my brother, having the life that I envisioned for myself. For us. You shouldn’t want me to feel this way for you anymore. You shouldn’t want me to look at you like I used to.” He moved forward and then halted. “I don’t give a fuck about your demon blood, and I certainly don’t care that Balan is your father.” An icy mist passed through his eyes. “I meant what I said to the Supreme at the winter solstice ball. I know your heart, and that’s what kills me, because I know how it feels about me too. I am being punished because I disobeyed my commander and put my heart before my duty. And I am enraged that the punishment involves you too. I will be forever sorry for that. I hate myself for it.”

She pulled a few strands of hair from her face. “I don’t care if I am punished anymore, Torin, because it feels like torture without you anyway. I can’t do it. I can’t marry Gideon. I just can’t. And you need to hear that. I won’t marry him.”

“Don’t say that. You need to.” He swallowed then, possibly a bit of his pride or his heart. “I am not scared of what would happen to me if we defied my father, but for you. It would make sense for you to marry him over me. He can make sure you are safe. What we have…it’s forbidden.”

She let him see a tear fall. “How the heart truly feels is never forbidden. The heart rules over everything.”

He looked at her with those piercing blue eyes, and she swore that a thunder cloud had merged just behind him, creating a menacing backdrop.

Finally, his lips parted, and he shook his head. “If I were a better man, a good man, I would let you be with Gideon. I would let you be with my brother and find happiness. I should walk away. You don’t need me to interfere with that.”

Emara shook her head as the lump formed in her throat again. “You have no idea what you are even saying.” Her voice rose. “That is not your decision. You can’t make that decision for me.”

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