Page 78 of Kissed By the Gods
He nods, mouth twitching like he knows exactly how strange that sounds coming from someone who’s wrestled death demons and climbed gods-cursed mountains.
“You can’t see the bottom,” he explains. “You never know what’s down there. Could be nothing. Could be everything.”
I kick my feet against the rocks, and the darkness circles like water. “But you still swim?”
“Of course, but I hate every second of it.”
I bump his shoulders with mine. “I thought you were fearless,” I tease.
He cuts me a sidelong glance, the corner of his mouth lifting. “I’m afraid of plenty of things, but I don’t let the fear control me.”
“That's the difference between cowards and warriors?”
He meets my gaze fully now. “No. That’s the difference between survivors and ghosts.”
And just like that, the mist feels a little heavier, a little closer. Still, I’m not cold. I could never be cold when he’s looking at me like that.
I lean forward, close enough that my lips hover over his. He doesn’t pull away, doesn’t move at all. He watches me, like he’s waiting to see if I’ll really do it. His eyes are a dare.
So, of course, I do. I press my lips against his, firmly. I’m surprised by the realness of it, the way his mouth moves with mine. It’s not a hungry kiss, not desperate. It’s quiet, careful, as if we’re both afraid to break this spell we’re under, afraid the dream itself might shatter if we press too hard.
His lips are warm—warmer than they have any right to be in this place of shadows and mist. One of his hands rises, hesitates,then finally finds my jaw, his thumb grazing the edge of my cheekbone. I pull back a little, enough to see his eyes. They’re burning now—no longer embers, but full flame.
“I’ve never had a dream this sweet,” I whisper.
“I’ve never had anything this sweet,” he murmurs back.
My breath catches, and I reach my own hand forward to touch him.
But then I’m falling. Backward. Upward. He reaches for me. I think.
“Leina!”
The darkness breaks apart. Or maybe it comes together.
“The Altor are sworn to the Synod alone. They may not marry, sire, or bond beyond these walls. Their lives are given in service to the Eternal Wars; their deaths are offered as tribute to the gods. There is no room for other vows.”
The Annals of the Winged, a canon text in the Synod Reckoning Hall
CHAPTER THIRTY
Cold slapsme in the face.
Literally.
I jolt upright with a choking gasp, ice water dripping down my neck and soaking into my blanket. My short hair is plastered to my forehead, my tunic clinging to my skin.
“What in the—Leif!”
He’s standing over me with an empty bucket and a completely unrepentant look on his face.
“By the gods, Leina,” he says, shaking his head and tossing the bucket into the corner, “you can’t sleep that deeply. You’re a warrior, not a stone.”
“I was exhausted,” I grumble, peeling the wet blanket off my chest and glaring up at him.
