Page 105 of Of Blooming Embers
“Sorry. I know you’re right,” I murmured.
Although grief manifested differently for everyone, I wasn’t certain Kaden had ever allowed himself to feel the full weight of his mourning.
When I thought of my mother and Hestia, though the sorrow lingered, its sharp edges had dulled with time, its presence fading into a subdued hum in the back of my thoughts throughout the turns.
But Kaden … I’d watched him mask his pain over and over. Unchecked, his rage had been simmering for far too long. I feared that either his soul would evaporate, leaving him hollow and brittle, or it would boil over, consuming him entirely.
41
BRACE YOURSELF
GAVREL
By sundown, we’d reached the flower meadow. A crisp breeze shuddered through the flowers, making them twitch and creak. The field spanned at least twice the length of the training field outside Morpheus’ palace.
“Stay together and step lightly,” I instructed, pulling my sword from its scabbard.
The others nodded, moving along the edge with their weapons in hand, gently navigating the stiff blooms and scanning the surrounding area. We didn’t know exactly what to expect, but hopefully it wasn’t an immediate death by wyvern.
Seryn put her hand on my wrist, her face lost in thought until a flame of curiosity flashed over her eyes. “Yesterday, you said something. Something about your talisman. You said, ‘they wouldn’t know.’” I gulped, tension rolling over my back. “Who wouldn’t know? Why would it matter if someone knew we were fated?”
I wanted to tell her everything, but the words lodged in my chestlike a blade. With every effort to release them, they sliced deeper into my bones, and the rune stone boiled my blood. It wouldn’t let me release the words I so desperately wanted to free.
I grit my teeth, doubling forward. “I … You’re—you are more,” I ground out, pushing my palm hard into my chest and gasping.
She brushed her hand over my back, her plait falling over her shoulder as she soothed me. “All right. Stop. For Surrelia’s sake, Gav. We need to get that thing out of you.”
“Fine by me,” I panted, grimacing. “The day we figure out how to do that will be a good one indeed.”
Her mouth curved. “We can’t just get Breena to stab it out?”
“As much as I’d like to see her attempt it,” I muttered, tucking my mouth between my lips. “It won’t allow it. I’ve bloody well tried.” My nostrils flared as I breathed in the crisp air, letting it swirl inside me to ease the pain. I glanced at the others as they continued through the flowers prudently.
I straightened my spine and exhaled. “My mother—you know she dreamed—used to get messages from the Fates. When I turned eighteen, she came to me saying she’d been sent a warning.” I grimaced as my talisman burned again. Seryn rubbed my biceps.
Tentatively, I continued, my words tumbling over the next, “Yes, we argued. Not because I didn’t want you as my—” Heat sliced into my marrow, stealing my breath before I continued. “But because I was young and foolish. I didn’t have faith in her auguries then. She said that we were—that you were—more.” The sweltering behind my ribs spiked, and I wheezed. “If exposed, you’d be endangered. From the Elders. From the Ancients. I know not.”
For a moment, I cupped Seryn’s cheek, ignoring the simmering beneath my scar, and she leaned into my touch. Then my hand found hers, and I placed it over my heart, the contact easing the rune’s attack ever so slightly. “It was enough for me. I agreed to be silenced in exchange for your safety, and to give you the choice of whom to … whom to love. It’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”
Heart thundering, my tattoo lit, the glow reflecting in her eyes astears pooled in them. Her hand left mine and slid up my chest, her fingers resting under my ear. “You’ve sacrificed enough. All these turns. All the memories and secrets you’ve carried alone.” Regret and disgust lined her clipped words.
Like some sort of celestial being, her aura shimmered around her in a halo, and a look of determination settled along her features. She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. “You watched from the shadows, giving me the choice to live how I wanted. My mother. Hestia. You. You all paid the price for my safety. But I won’t have it, Gavrel. Won’t have those I love sacrificing themselves for me any longer. I can protect myself. I’m strong enough, and I’ll be damned if I allow you to stay in the darkness a moment longer.”
She stretched onto her tiptoes, clutching my tunic. Her face neared mine as I bent, her words brushing against my lips. “I’d choose you again and again. No one else. I’ll be by your side, with or without the bond, until my dying breath. And I’d like to see you or anyone else try to stop me.”
My fingers clutched at her lower back, pressing into the soft flesh. Pride swelled within me. She’d found herself. She’d found the strength she’d always feared. My mouth was a breath away from hers, drawn to her as if I were the aether being pulled into a supernova. Like we couldn’t draw air unless it were from one another.
She was my everything.
The sole reason for my existence.
A delicate sheen coated the deep well of her eyes. I felt her pulse within me. I swore the edges of her thoughts were scratching at the dark corners of my sentience, thrashing against the stone barrier blocking them.
A ragged whisper dragged from me and over her lips. “Asteria, I lo?—”
A frenzy of shouts and snarls ripped through the air. Seryn jerked from my embrace, her gaze snapping toward the commotion in the middle of the field.
“No!” she screamed, her body imploding in a flash of warped lightand reappearing several lengths in front of her cousin and our friends in my next blink.
