Page 62 of Wings of Frost and Fury
“I need a drink,” I mutter, dropping my hand.
I’m about to step away, but he says urgently, “Wait.”
“Why?”
“Feel it before you drown it in wine. Just for a moment, be with me. Please.”
“It hurts, though,” I whisper.
“I know. Suffer it for a few minutes, and it will become easier to bear.”
Part of me wants to defy him. But it’s not a demand, after all—it’s a gentle plea, one I can’t resist.
I stand before him, my arms framing his great dragon face, his nose against my chest. There, holding onto him, Ihurt, openly and without defense. I hurt so badly that more tears slip from my eyes, racing down my cheeks. I hurt until I realize that this pain is only one aspect of what I feel. The rest is a vast, sweet violence, a storm of hopeful craving centered on him.
The icy burn of his gaze holds mine, and his jaws move between the frame of my arms as he speaks. “Darling, you have my heart, my mind, and my body, whatever form it may take. I am yours utterly. Yours until the day my flesh dissipates and only my skeleton is left, and even then, my bones will tremble for the touch of your hand.”
“That’s precious,” I manage through the tightness in my throat. “But dragon lifespans are longer than those of humans, so if you live to the full extent of your years, I won’t be around to fondle your bones.”
He laughs again, deeper and fuller this time. “I was trying to be poetic. I’m no good at it, apparently.”
“Few people are. And most human poets don’t tend to promise their trembling skeletons to their loved ones.”
“Loved ones,” he says softly. “I like that. You are indeed a loved one of mine.Theloved one.”
“Hush, pet,” I chide him, kissing his nose, trying to hold back the stream of tears. “You’ll break me, I swear.”
“I think you need to break a little. You haven’t broken in a long time. It might be a relief to sit with me and weep.”
I want to protest that I don’t cry like that. I don’t break down. I remain strong, not for anyone else, but for myself. I bite my lip, afraid that if I speak, I’ll start sobbing.
“Being vulnerable to you is the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced,” he says. “I feel refreshed. I feel like I could do anything. I only want the same for you.”
He’s so fucking good to me that I almost hate him for it, because I know myself, and I know I can never be that sweet to him. Lucky for me, he’s not asking for sweetness. He’s asking for brokenness.
Broken, I can do.
“You want me to cry?” I manage through clenched teeth. “Fine. I’ll cry.”
14
Thelise weeps so hard I’m afraid she will shake apart.
She manages a few words between the sobs, enough for me to understand that she’s crying over her exile, mourning the friend she killed with magic, raging over everyone who has rejected or demeaned her since she was banished. She’s crying because her father is dead, and because he committed an atrocity of magic so great that she feels the weight of his name like a curse upon her own existence. She weeps because she is exhausted. And she’s also hungry. I gather that much from the hiccupped words toward the end of her tearful confession.
Luckily my body shifts to human form around the same time she expresses the need for food, and I’m able to gather something edible for her. She cries harder because she’s craving a hot meal, and this food isn’t hot or cold.
I promise her that a hot meal will be provided tomorrow.
While she eats, she keeps bursting into sobs at intervals. I don’t ask why. I simply wrap myself in a blanket and sit beside her. When she wants to lean against me, she does.
Tearfully she tells me how frightened she is of being kept on Ouroskelle for the rest of her life. Later she gasps out, “I’m sorry for hurting you with the Haljax face,” and I understand that it’s her apology for making me look like the lover who rejected her.
At last she lies on the blanket with her head in my lap, tired out, her eyes and nose puffy from weeping. She isn’t the sly, graceful, self-possessed sorceress in this moment, but she is just as beautiful to me like this, perhaps even more so.
Her breathing is easier now, and she looks up at me between swollen eyelids. “I haven’t cried like that since Katlee died. I think I’ve been drowning it all, suffocating my emotions with so many other things. But you were right. I feel better.”
“Sometimes we find strength through admitting weakness. Mordessa taught me that.”
