Page 54 of This Midsummer Heart
A slow, swooping melody begins on a fiddle, then is picked up by a steady, softer drum. The firelight grows, painting the shimmering rose color of her dress even brighter, her cheeks coloring to match. We’re dancing so close to one another now, my hand reaching behind her waist. Without the gusto of the previous song, the gesture is so much more intimate now.
Titaine’s expression shutters and she starts to pull away. And I see everything so clearly for once: If I let her get away now, I may never get another chance.
“Titaine,” I say, my voice even and low beneath the music and the even drumming of the Midsummer feast, my hold on her just as steady.
“Let me go,Auberon,“ she practically snarls, as if she is my prisoner and not that my broad hand is spread across her back, exerting mild pressure.
Maybe she is my prisoner. Maybe she has been all along. But that is not who she is meant to be.
“Stay,” I command her.
“I said let me go, Morganna curse you!”
But instead of pulling away, she steps in toward me, her hands curled into fists as she pushes them against my chest, as if she meant to beat me with those little fists before the growing bonfire revealed the look in my eyes. It stops her in her tracks.
I cannot say how it appears to her. I only know that look upon her tenderly, searching for the person she was, for the love she once had for me, to find out once and for all if even a spark of it still remains.
A corner of Titaine’s mouth lifts in the start of a sneer as her lips part, managing a vehement “you” in rebuke before my hand moves to her jaw, cradling her face and stilling her speech in one movement.
The dark elves dance and sing around the bonfire, giving us a wide berth. I barely know they’re there. This moment between us stretches on, our bodies positioned in a posture somewhere between that of lovers and that of bitter adversaries.
“There can only be you, Titaine,” I tell her, gazing into the golden depths of those searching brown eyes.
“Thereisonly you—it’s only ever been you. No one else. I love you. I love you still, and I love you for a second time. Be my queen again, and I will be not your king but your devoted servant.”
Titaine shudders, and I think that she will pull away for good. Instead, her wings give a tremulous flutter, then a rapid beat as she rises to the tips of her toes.
And then her lips are on mine. She tastes of honey and salt and something uniquely her, something I can neither name nor live without. Instead of easing the aching in my chest, it only intensifies.
I’ve missed this. I’ve missed her. Her lips are so soft against mine, the movements of her mouth dancing between passion and hesitation. Titaine’s fists curl open, palms resting gently on my chest instead of pushing me away.
And it isn’t enough. In so many ways, it is nowhere near enough.
My hand still on her jaw, I pull away, pushing her back gently. Now it is my turn to search her face for answers, even though I have already received mine.
A kiss, no matter how heady, is not a yes. A kiss can be for love, for guilt, for saying goodbye. It cannot mean what I want it to until she says the words I ache to hear.
“Titaine.”
I say her name once, not quite pleading, because I know better than to ask for an inch of mercy from her when she is so unwilling to give it. When she is so unwilling to risk her heart.
Even when I can see now that beneath that unreadable mask of serenity she now wears, she wants to stay. She wants to be able to love me.
But Titaine hasn’t changed, even if I finally have. She won’t open her heart to me again—not when it means giving me the power to crush it again, too.
Diaphanous layers of rose flare and then disappear into the embermoss-lit night, back toward the huts of Embersdeep.
Titaine is gone.
Chapter twenty-five
The Outpost
Titaine
Aswebidfarewellto Indigo and Veld after too little sleep, I avoid eye contact with Auberon. The dark elf astronomers of the fire swamp, led by a kindly elder called Alona, walk us back to the road, giving us instructions on the best path out and warning us of troubles we might meet along the way.
“I’m sure they will hinder you little,” Alona says, her silver braids bobbing as she nods to Auberon. “There is only the isthmus to truly concern yourselves with. Take care on the Bridge of Miracles, your highness. The heavens speak of more chaos to come, and you are greatly needed.”
