Page 138 of Elven Crown

“What do you want?” she hissed, unblinking as she held his gaze.

“To help you remember. You made a vow.”

It wasn’t his words but the way he said them, his voice so gentle, filled with so much tenderness and authenticity and just enough pleading to hit her right where it hurt the most.

Just like he’d known it would.

A burst of silver light bloomed in and around Rowan’s closed fist as he lifted it between them, refusing to break their gaze.

Rebecca wouldn’t be the first to pull away. Absolutely not.

Under no circumstances would she look down at the thing Rowan had conjured in his fist. The thing he wanted her to see. The thing he had carried with him all this way, if not physically, then in spirit and intention.

He lifted his hand a little higher and opened his fingers a little wider.

Rebecca shook her head, clenching her jaw, widening her eyes, breathing deeply through her nose, because those were the alternatives to losing control of herself.

“No. I’m not that person anymore, Rowan,” she said, hating the barely audible tremble in her voice. “I left all that behind. I leftyoubehind.”

“Kilda’ari...”

The sound of that secret name on his lips and in his voice as every fiber of the Blackmoon Elf’s being pleaded with her now made her want to cry out. To give in. To turn to him. To reach for him the way she had so long ago, when they were both still so young and everything had been possible in their eyes.

Now, all she could do was press her lips together even more tightly and shake her head again, as if staring at him long enough would make him understand how lost his cause was.

Deep down, she knew it would never be that easy.

“You need to look at this,” he whispered.

By the Blood. Of all the things she’d been trained and honed to do, all the plans she’d laid and all the precautions she’d taken, she hadn’t prepared herself forthis.

For anyone to find her in this world, least of all Rowan Blackmoon. His current weapons of patience and compassion were the kind against which she had no idea how to defend herself.

The pull was too strong to ignore—the bond between them, the promises, the unrealized future that would have already become her present if she’d made different choices.

This, right here…this ghost of a thing she felt with Rowan was just one more thread of the larger tapestry she’d been running from for so long now.

Back then, she’d convinced herself that physical distance was all she needed. That she would be in control again as long as she put enough space between her and the Bloodshadow Court. Between her and her destiny. Between her and the whole world, even.

But it had found her all the same. It had followed her, crept up on her, dropped in when she’d least expected it, and the very fact that Rowan now stood here in front of her, mere inches away, brought that bond between them pouring back down onto her in a rush.

Everything it stood for. Everything it meant. Everything it endangered. All its inherent consequences.

All of it.

Neither pleasant nor unpleasant, just irresistible.

As if she could no longer physically resist, like some larger invisible force moved her head and directed her gaze, Rebecca had no choice but to look down at this thing in Rowan’s open hand.

Perhaps even the only thing from her past that could have ever evoked such a strong physiological reaction in her like the one overwhelming her in this moment.

37

How incredible it seemed now that something so small and seemingly harmless could hold so much power over her.

But that was the way of these things. The way of the old world and of the Bloodshadow Court especially.

It was only a bone tile. Nothing impressive. Nothing awe-inspiring.

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