Page 178 of Lady for Embers

“And what exactly is it you think I am waiting for, Cyrus?”

“I...” He still hadn’t looked at him, focusing on the scorch mark below his boot, but he looked up and met his eye now, his pupils having returned to normal. “I honestly don’t know, Cassius. Someone you won’t mind having by your side for the next few centuries? Someone who’s more than nothing when you kiss them?”

A heavy silence settled over the room, and Cyrus immediately regretted saying anything because this wasn’t about him. This wasn’t about the swirling thoughts in his head when it came toMerrik and Thia and Cassius. This was about making sure Cass was taken care of, and he needed a Source for that.

“I may not have meant to kiss you that day, but it doesn’t mean I didn’t want to,” Cassius said, a strange, low rasp to his tone. Cyrus swallowed thickly at the admission, but Cassius went on. “Everyone keeps telling me that I can be sel?sh. You. Scarlett. You keep calling me a self-sacri?cing martyr, but what about you?” He pushed back to his feet, crossing the room in a few long strides. He stood over him, forcing Cyrus to tilt his head back to look up at him. “You call me self-sacri?cing, but you? You willingly give up every part of you without question as to the cost because you think you are unworthy of anything more. You think it is all you aredeservingof.”

“Stop.” He meant to say it with some bite behind the word, but it came out as more of a pained rasp.

Cassius bent down, bracing his hands on the back of the sofa on either side of Cyrus, bringing his face inches from his. “If you were anyone else, I would go to Scarlett right this second and ask her to give you the Source Mark. If you were anyone else, this would have been taken care of weeks ago. If you were anyone else, Cyrus, I would be sel?sh. But that’s the thing. Iambeing sel?sh. Because you aren’t nothing. You areeverything. I don’t want this with anyone else, but I also don’t want you bound to me because you are worthy of so much more than being a Source. It is me who is not deserving of you, Cyrus. Not the other way around. And if you can’t value yourself enough to see that, then I will value you enough for both of us.”

His lips crashed into Cyrus’s, and Cyrus reached up to ?st his tunic and drag him closer, only to be met with hard muscle. Cassius was still shirtless from training, and a low growl came from Cassius at the touch.

Cassius broke the kiss after only a few seconds, both of them breathing hard. “I’ll take a Source when you go back to Aelyndee.”

“Why?” Cyrus asked, his ?ngers slipping from Cassius’s ?esh as Cassius pushed himself upright.

“Because that was the last place you felt truly deserving of something, and that was also the place where you began to believe you were unworthy of anything good. That it would eventually be taken from you. Losing Thia just solidi?ed that thinking,” Cassius replied, turning and striding back to the desk.

“Everything good in my lifeiseventually taken from me,” Cyrus snapped. “Sorin would have been next if it weren’t for Cethin and Scarlett. I know the Fates did not spare him because of me.”

“Howdeservingyou must be to know the inner workings of the Fates.”

“Fuck off,” Cyrus snapped, getting to his feet. “I don’t know why you think this is your call to make.”

“I don’t know why everyone else thinks it’s their call to force me to take a Source,” Cassius countered, sitting back down at the desk.

“Youneeda Source, Cass!”

“And you need to be able to let me in completely before I can ask you to be that for me,” he retorted.

“You are as infuriating as your Ward,” Cyrus sneered. “Thinking you know what is best for everyone around you.”

“She is rarely wrong,” Cassius said with a shrug. “And you?”

Cassius shrugged again, turning back to the desk and pulling the book forward. “I’ll keep reminding you how deserving you are until you start to believe it.”

Chapter 34

Scarlett

"Good morning?” Cethin came to stop as he entered the dining room on the king’s ?oor of the castle.

“Kailia let me in,” Scarlett said sweetly, raising a cup of tea to him in greeting. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course she did.”

The Avonleyan Queen had appeared from smoke and ashes the moment Scarlett had stepped into what was apparently the princess’s wing of the castle. Kailia had studied her for a long moment when Scarlett had told her what she wanted, before she’d ?nally said, “He will argue with you on this.”

“Lucky for me I am in the mood to argue then,” Scarlett had replied with a sharp smile. “Unless you want to tell me what I wish to know?”

“Why do you think I would know the answers you seek?” Kailia had asked.

“Because I see the way he looks at you. You keep nothing from each other.”

Kailia’s lips had twitched slightly. “A blessing and a curse, I suppose.”

“I could not agree more,” Scarlett had said knowingly.

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