Page 49 of Steeling Light
But I can’t.
“What?” she asks, confusion written all over her face. “You told me you would. You told me I was your heart. You told me you’d do anything to protect me.”
I nod to her. “That’s why I can’t do this, Ainslee.” I take her hands in mine and hold them tight, savoring every second I get to touch her. “This month has been the best month of my life. Every conversation. Every moment. Every smile on your face will be what I dream of when I sleep at night. But Ainslee, I’m the enemy, and Cole is going to kill me.”
She stiffens. “No, he won’t. I just have to explain that you’re on our…”
I shake my head. “No, it won’t work. I’m going to do my best to stay out of the fight. I’m going to refuse my father when he tells me to lead our troops, but I can’t promise you I’ll be successful. I can’t promise I’ll be strong enough, and if I take the field against Cole and Maeve, they will win that fight. I’ll do whatever is in my power to let them.”
She shakes her head. “No. Rhion Rahn, I will not allow you to die for a cause you don’t believe in. Let’s run away instead. Let’s leave it all behind us. Selithar. Draenyth. This fight for the Thrones. Let’s…”
I can’t. How do I explain that? How do I tell her that the only way out is through? “If Cole and Maeve win this war with my father, then someone will have to sit on the Throne, and there is no one else that can control the House of Steel other than me. Even if Cole is successful, though, I have to be there to take control of the armies and tell them to stand down. Killing my father won’t end what he’s begun. No one else will stop what he started. And if Cole loses…”
I take a deep breath. “I’m the only person who could possibly kill my father if Cole dies. I cannot run away from the world, Ainslee. We have to stay this time. I think you’ve given me the strength to stand up to my father, but I cannot tie my soul to yours if there’s any chance of my dying. I cannot put you through that torment for the rest of your life.”
Ainslee grinds her jaw, and the whisper of a snarl escapes her lips. “Fine. We won’t bind ourselves together. Instead, we’ll have a proper betrothal. It’s what my mother would want anyway. She’d want the courts to spend weeks talking about it.”
A betrothal? I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “There’s another thing.”
She frowns. “What else could there be? Rhion, I am offering you my soul, and you just keep handing it back. What’s a girl to think?”
Even now, as I’m facing the fact that I may very well never see her again, I can’t help but smile. “I promise that if we’re still alive at the end of all this, I will tie myself so tightly to you that you’ll wonder why you ever let me get that close. But if we’re bonded, your friends will smell me on you. They’ll know, and they will question your loyalty. You may know me, but they don’t. In their eyes, I am the enemy, and that means you’ll be the enemy too. I will not have your friends execute you so we can do this early.”
Then she does something I would never have imagined. She draws back her hand and slaps me across my face. She put Steel power behind that swing, and it hurts.
“That is enough. My friends will not execute me for falling in love with you. And that is something for me to deal with, not you. You protect me from the rest of the world, but I can handle my brother and friends. Do you understand?”
Blood rushes to my cheek to deal with the injury. I could heal it, but I don’t, letting the throbbing of my heartbeat pulse through the skin. “I swore to protect you.”
“No, you didn’t. You swore you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. There’s a big difference, and Rhion, you’re not the only one who gets to make decisions. I’m not a little girl being attacked by a basilisk. I fought side-by-side with you against a god. I have fought against your troops for a very long time. I have earned my place in this world, not as a damsel in distress, but as someone who can stand on her own. If I’m going to tie my soul to you, you need to trust me to protect myself as well. Do you understand that?”
She’s never talked to me like that before, but… is it surprising? Ainslee isn’t the girl I grew up with. She’s become a strong woman in her own right. She may let Cole and Darian lead, but there isn’t an ounce of weakness in her. The fire at the inn proved it to me. She did what most Steel soldiers I trained couldn’t have done, and almost none of them would have done. She endured being cooked alive to save the people in that terrible little inn.
I stare into her eyes, determined and unyielding, and I nod. “You’re more than capable of protecting yourself. I just don’t want you to have to.”
“Well, I don’t care.” She says it in the same tone, but this time she’s smiling. “Rhion Rahn, you’re not the only person who could die in this battle. I have gone through my entire life without understanding the happiness that people like my mother seem to find in life. I have put one foot in front of the other and tried to do the right thing when I could. I’ve helped people and have been loyal to the ones who have been loyal to me.”
She pauses for a moment, and the smile widens. “But I have never woken up in the morning and wanted the day to last forever. Not until this month. Yes, either of us could get hurt, but the goal of life isn’t to run from pain. It’s running toward happiness. And that’s you, Rhion Rahn. You may not be my heart, but youaremy happiness. I want to see someone try to keep me from running toward you.”
I don’t have words for that. I’ve dreamed of this moment for so long. Yet, I couldn’t believe it would ever come true.
This isn’t a dream, though, and no amount of logic or self-sacrifice compares to the need that’s risen inside me. I need Ainslee like a fish needs water to breathe, like a tree yearns for the soil.
My only answer is to take her hands in mine, palm to palm, and say, “I offer myself to you.” I know the words by heart. Warmth swells inside me, but it’s not the heat of lust. It’s magic, pure and clean. It’s the part given to us by the dragons, what makes us High Fae.
Pride rolls through me in a way that has only ever happened when she kissed me. My fingers shift into claws, and I can’t stop them from finding her flesh. My skin becomes less solid as if thepossibilitiesinside me have become truly alive, rippling and flowing as they await my needs.
“I offer myself to you,” Ainslee repeats, and her fingers shift into talons as well, digging into my hand enough to draw blood. Crimson drops from each of us mix in our palms, just as the power begins to swirl around us. No, it’s not power. It’s our souls dancing.
The possibilities swirl inside me, not searching for a purpose. No, they’re searching for a person. For a soul. “I will protect you,” I whisper as I stare into Ainslee’s eyes. The dark green swallows me up, and I can’t see beyond the two of us. The rest of the world doesn’t matter.
“I will make you smile,” she says, and she glows with a silver light; light that caresses rather than blinds. It surrounds us, and the very air seems to dance in time with our entwining souls.
My heart swells as her words dig into me, as they become a part of me. A promise. A truth.
“I will help you stand tall. I will remind you to shine even in the daylight.” Bits and pieces of me, of thosepossibilities,pull away from me and float around us. They dance within our exposed souls, constantly shifting and becoming fragments of memories—a dagger, a mirror, a crystal, a piece of hematite.
Ainslee’s smile grows even wider, but she doesn’t look at the objects swirling around us. Her gaze never breaks from mine. “I will remind you that you are strong. And I will help you dance even when the night is darkest.”
