Page 93 of Destroyer

He gave her a look that said she’d asked the most obvious question in the world. “How else would I contrive an excuse to dance with you?”

Ru felt herself blushing, and hoped he wouldn’t see in the low light. She was still in her day clothes, grass-stained and sweaty. She knew she should go back to her room and change, and do her hair, but she was rooted to the spot.

“Oh,” was all she managed to say.

Fen’s face fell slightly. “You were busy. I’ll leave you.”

“No!” Ru’s outburst was so instinctual, so unplanned that it set her cheeks burning even hotter. “I mean, come sit with me. I’m saying goodbye, should things go horribly wrong.”

Fen sat, draping his jacket across his knees. The bench at the table wasn’t very long; they were forced to sit thigh to thigh, their shoulders almost touching. He smelled of wind and earth. “You’re saying goodbye to the artifact?”

“I’m not talking to it, don’t worry. Just… thinking. Looking.”

“Your connection with this rock,” said Fen, “the things it seems to make you do, the way it makes you act… nothing good and true could do that to a person. Yet, you act almost as if you…” he shook his head, hair falling around his face.

“As if I love it?” Ru finished for him. There were only so many possible ways he could have finished that sentence. He knew how she felt about the artifact.

Fen turned sharply to meet her gaze. “In the worst way,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. “Like someone might adore a cruel lover. This bond you’ve formed, it was born from destruction. Death. I’m worried—”

“I know,” Ru interrupted, turning away. “Imagine how I feel.”

A moment passed in silence. Ru thought Fen might stand then, leave her alone once more. He was so good at that. Instead, he let out a deep sound of resignation and said, “How do I join you in saying goodbye? Should I just… look at it?”

Ru laughed a little. “If you want to. It’s quiet today, though I’m not sure why.”

“Very well,” said Fen, leaning forward to stare at the artifact.

Nothing happened, of course. Fen had no tie to the object. Ru felt the stone’s distant touch, the warmth of Fen sitting next to her, but other than that faraway pull from the artifact there was nothing unusual there.

Until therewas.

The strangest sensation, like a mild electric shock, flared briefly between them, where their legs touched.

Ru turned to Fen, wide-eyed.

“Did you feel that?” he said, returning her stare.

Ru nodded. Acting on instinct, she took his hand in hers and placed their entwined hands on the table, closing her eyes.

“Shut your eyes, Fen.” And even though she couldn’t see, she knew he obeyed. “Keep doing whatever you were doing,” she murmured. She didn’t know what would happen, and had no way to prove that their combined presence wouldn’t activate the artifact, destroying the Tower in the process.

But something in her gut, something entirely separate from the artifact, told her this was right. This was pure, it was good.

Fen’s hand was warm in hers, broader than hers, her fingers stretching to accommodate his. His forearm flexed slightly where their arms touched — she could feel it through his thin shirt. His breathing was slow, deliberate, regular, as though he was counting between each inhale and exhale.

Somehow, the more Ru allowed Fen’s closeness to invade her senses, the more of him she was able to feel, to understand. His pulse, too fast and didn’t match his breathing. His jaw, tense. His other hand, still clasped tightly around his jacket, crumpled on his lap.

“Ru,” he said, his voice slow as if emerging from a deep sleep. “What…”

“It won’t hurt you,” she said.

As she spoke, she caressed the artifact with the smallest, gentlest stroke of her thoughts. She said no words, asked no questions, she simply acknowledged it. Welcomed it. She felt, squeezing Fen’s hand, that it was the natural and obvious thing to do.

And as she reached out, so did the artifact.

They met in the middle, and its pull held no desperation, no anger, no fear. It simply existed. The more she allowed her connection with the artifact to grow, an exchange of energy expanded between them, and her heart opened up like a flower to the sun.

Fen’s breaths rose and fell. Blood rushed through his veins.

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