Page 111 of Destroyer

His skin against hers, the deeply accented voice that played in her mind at the darkest hours of the night, his return after days of believing she might never see him again… her heart continued its slow, slow crumble.

She closed her eyes, trying to wish him away. “You said don’t.”

“Let me come with you,” he said, desperation in the shadows of his words. “I’ll protect you. I’m your instrument. Use me. Just tell me where you’re going.”

“Ru!” came the hushed call from Archie, outside the stable. “We’re ready, let’s go.”

“I will doanything,” Fen murmured, lowering his head until their foreheads were touching. “I’ll spend my life repenting for leaving. Let me come with you.”

Weakness. That was all Ru felt now, hating herself for it, but welcoming it. Her knees were unsteady from the closeness of him. Her stubbornness was relenting for Fen, and he knew it, but she didn’t care. Just as she had always given way to the artifact, she did the same for Fen. And it felt right, it was comfort. It was home. She needed Fen. Her body demanded him, and she wouldn’t be the one to refuse.

Something in Ru unfurled, a bloom at the touch of spring, the artifact’s voice against her. The closer Fen came, the brighter it burned. She couldn’t resist it completely, though her mind was still clear. She raised herself up on tiptoe, relenting just enough to curve her arms around his neck, inhaling him, the smell of snow and storm.

“We’re going to Mirith,” she breathed, her lips brushing his windswept hair, the shell of his ear. “With the artifact. It’s not safe at the Tower. It doesn’t matter why. Fen…” she buried her face in his neck, pressed her mouth to his throat.

Then she lifted her face to take his mouth with hers, slow and soft, savoring the joy of it, the feel of his lips, his hands in her hair, at her hips, under her waistcoat… she bit back a moan. She had wanted this every moment since the night he left, yearned for it, and her body was too eager to respond to him.

“Fen,” she gasped, using every ounce of her mental strength to return to the present moment, the need for haste. “I have to go.”

“Take me with you.”

She pulled away, eyes stinging. Though everything inside of her was drawn to Fen, though she yearned to crumble before him and lay her soul bare, she held back. It took all her strength to do it. And in her heart she erected a wall, cutting him out, putting an end to it. Letting him go.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “If you had stayed…” She swung herself into the saddle, gripped the reins in her still-unsteady hands.

Fen watched her silently, his face an unreadable mask.

“Goodbye, Fen.”

As she rode out of the stable, she took a long breath of night air. She hadn’t believed she could do it, hadn’t been sure she would. But there were bigger things at stake. Her heart would heal. Biting back hot tears, ignoring the gaping hole in her chest, she gave the nod to Archie and Gwyneth. They turned, urging their horses forward, toward the road.

Instinctively, thoughtlessly, Ru reached for the artifact. It was a habit now, born of constantly looking for it, aching for it, her need to be close to it in its absence. The same absence as Fen’s. She frowned as the tether between her and the artifact seemed to pull, to lengthen as she rode.

“Wait,” she said, voice faltering, calling out to her friends as a sickness gripped her stomach. Sour terror rose in her throat as she realized something was missing; something was wrong.

They halted and turned to stare at her, eyes wide; they must have heard the alarm in her tone.

Wordlessly, she pressed the spot where she had nestled the artifact, safely against her ribs, and felt nothing. Nothing. Refusing to believe, she wrenched open her waistcoat and held it wide.

The artifact was no longer there.

As if in slow motion, Ru twisted in the saddle, turning back to the stables where Fen had been. There he stood, bathed in moonlight, as if waiting for this moment. His expression was unreadable to Ru, but even from a distance, his eyes seemed to glitter, hard and dark.

For a split second, Ru’s world stood still.

Then Fen broke the stillness, tracing a strange motion in the air with his fingers. There was a loud crackle, a wavering, tight feeling in the air. Like the static shock before a lightning strike.

One second Fen was there, dark eyes shining.

In the next, he was gone.

All that remained was a blooming sphere of what appeared to be black lightning, just where he had stood. It was so nonsensical, so inexplicable that Ru almostlaughed.

The lightning flickered for a moment and then it, too, sputtered and disappeared.

Ru turned back to the others, numb with shock. “He has it,” she said. “Fen has the artifact.”

CHAPTER39

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