Page 90 of Crown of Wrath

She frowns at me. “Anything for you, Cole.”

“Don’t say that yet,” I breathe. I hold up my wrist and show her the bright red and orange band. “I made you a magical oath in your mental landscape, Maeve. I promised you that you could have all of me, and I haven’t been able to completely fulfill that oath. There is more to me than the bed.”

She tries to interrupt me, but I raise my hand, silencing her. “Just wait. I thought you were going to die, Maeve. I thought you were going to let yourself fade into the darkness and become a shell. I would have done anything or said anything to convince you to heal yourself. I would have made this vow and then broken it if that’s what it took to keep you alive. There was only one thing that I wasn’t sure that I would do.”

I swallow hard and stare into those beautiful emerald eyes of hers. “What are you trying to say, Cole?” she asks. Her voice is soft and soothing, not angry at all. Then again, she doesn’t understand what I’m saying. Maybe in two seconds she’ll be furious with me for even considering this. It’s insane. It’s a terrible decision. My father would tell me I was the biggest idiot in Nyth.

But it’s the only thing I want. In a thousand years, I’ve never been truly selfish. I’ve never asked for anything purely because I wanted it. My life has revolved around everyone else, but this time… “Maeve, I want to marry you. I want to turn our betrothal into a true bonding. I want our souls to become one forever.”

She tries to talk again, and I stop her immediately. “I’m not done yet,” I say, rushing to get the rest of the words out while I still have the courage because I can’t ask for it without telling her why it’s selfish and wrong. “It’s a terrible decision, Maeve. Right now, if I die, it’s going to hurt you. We’re betrothed. Youcare about me, but you’ll survive. You’ll get over me. Maeve, if we bond our souls and I don’t survive, what are you going to do? Are you going to shatter again? Are you going to give up and fade into the darkness?”

I take a breath, and Maeve doesn’t try to interrupt. “Because if you do that, all of this will be for nothing. The world can survive without me. There are other Immortals that can sit on the Throne of Flames. More than that, people don’t follow me like they follow you. They don’t follow me out of love, and when this is over, that’s what Nyth will need more than my strength. The world will not survive you losing yourself.”

She’s quiet for a few moments. Her cheek presses against my chest, and I feel her breathe in my arms. I pull her tighter to me. The sound of her breath against my shirt is soothing, and I almost try to brush it all off. But I can’t. I need to know how she feels. I won’t do this if she’s going to let herself die if I do.

“What should I do, Cole?” she asks softly, her voice barely muffled by my shirt. “I love you more than anything or anyone. I could watch everyone else die again. I could go through it all over again, and I am strong enough to survive. My Da. Hazel. My friends. Your friends. Every person I have ever known. I would watch them die, and I could survive it. But you? Cole, you’re the only reason I came back. You’re my everything. How could you expect me to survive losing you?”

I sigh, glad that I have my answer. Part of me is happy that she chose not to bind herself to me. It makes things simpler. Now…

“I want to marry you, Cole Cyrus,” she says, interrupting my processing. “I want to marry you because there’s never going to be anyone else. I see my mother and my Da. She is going to outlive him. They both know it. She’s going to have a hole in her soul because she wanted to live what few days they have together as closely as possible. Her pain will come regardless, and there will be no getting over it for her. She knows that.”

Maeve stares up at me, those emerald eyes shining. “I know I won’t ever get over you, Cole. I won’t. You think I will, but you’re wrong. You don’t know how hard I love. You don’t know how much you mean to me. It has nothing to do with our betrothal and everything to do with the fact that you are my everything. Cole Cyrus, I will do what it takes to marry you, to bind my soul to yours forever. If you die, I will hurt forever whether or not our souls are bound, so we might as well enjoy every moment as much as possible.”

I suck in a breath, but I don’t try to dissuade her. I want to marry her, too. I don’t care about pain, and if she dies, my world will end whether or not my life does. Something inside me knows that Maeve Arden, my Wyrdling, is too strong for anything in this world or the next to force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do. Including die.

But I can’t say the same about myself. “How will you make sure you survive, Maeve? The world needs you. I can’t go to war worrying that you’ll give up if I die. You know that.”

She raises her hand in front of me. The little tally mark on her wrist shines in black, the final debt she owes me. “Call in your debt. Make me promise not to give up if you die. This way, I can feel your flames forever. I will remember this moment forever, and I will remember your face as I promise you. I won’t be able to give up knowing that I’m failing you. Instead, I’ll feel your flames lick my skin, as they have so many times in the past.”

I hesitate, thinking about it. For my entire life, I was in complete control. I made every decision, treating people like cogs in a machine, tweaking them to get different results. I made decisions based on what I knew about them, guessing how I could push them to get what I wanted. Even Darian and Lee, my closest friends, were manipulated like this.

Magical oaths won’t work because the only repercussion for breaking them is death, the very thing I don’t want to happen.

I won’t be there to push her or protect her. I can only trust her word. It feels so human. Just as she’d trusted me when I promised to take care of the humans all those months ago on the day she first arrived in Draenyth.

All I can do is trust her.

“I call in the debt,” I breathe, and I feel the magic flowing through my words into her wrist. The magic that’s imbued into her skin flares to life. “I demand that you do not give up and fade into the void if I die. You must keep living.”

The waves of magic roll off my tongue as easily as the words do. Her tally mark flares for just a moment, and then Maeve says, “I will not give up if you die, Cole. I will live.”

I nod to her and take her hand in mine. “If that’s the case, then when can we do the ritual? There’s nothing I want more in this world than to be bound to you forever.”

She grins and runs her hand over my cheek. “I want it to be special. Our betrothal was done in dirty clothes after weeks of traveling. I want my marriage to have a little pomp and circumstance.”

I grin. “We can do that. How about in ten days? I’ll arrange everything. You just show up.”

She doesn’t answer. Instead, she just presses her head against my chest again, and I feel her smiling more than ever before. “I never thought I’d get married,” I say.

“Me neither. I expected to live alone in the woods with mice for company.”

My fingers dig into Maeve’s back as I cling to her. I spent my life living for other people's goals. I was my father’s blade and Brenna’s manipulator. I became strong enough that nothing could break me. For a thousand years, everything I did was for someone else. Not this time. Marrying Maeve isn’t for power or renown. It’s not to make more powerful children that I can use against other Immortals.

I’m being selfish. I want her. I want all of her, from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. I want her heart and mind and soul. I want to bow to her as more than just my Queen. I want to be the one she dreams of and the one who makes her body quake in the middle of the night. For the rest of our lives.

It’s not logical, and both Darian and Lee would tell me I was being an idiot. But… But something inside me tells me that this is the last chance I’ll have. I’ve never been afraid of a battle. I walked into the House of Shadows and faced down the most powerful shadow wielder in the world without an ounce of fear.

But Brenna fought clean. Gethin… I don’t know what he’s going to do. I don’t know what powers he’ll bring to the fight. And I don’t know if I’m strong enough. For the first time, I’m not sure that I’ll survive this fight.

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