Page 99 of Swords of Soul and Shadow
“Not now, Niels,” she pled.
“You know I only want you to be happy.”
Hallie closed her eyes for a moment, the outline of the sword painted on the back of her eyelids. She gripped it tightly to keep herself grounded.
Niels didn’t pick up on the hint. “Can we please just talk about it?”
Hallie didn’t loosen her grip on the sword, but she looked up at last. His eyes, ones she knew better than her own, were soft and pleading. Regret flooded her veins. No matter what had happened three years ago, she was the one who had left. She was the one who had made them near-strangers. That part wasn’t his fault. She worried her lip a second before she whispered, “I’m sorry.”
He took a step forward, his hand finding her upper arm. He held it lightly and bent to look in her eyes. She didn’t move out of his grip, but she avoided his gaze.
“Look…I tried, all right? I thought I was able to move on, but after these last few months of horror I’ve been through…and then you show up and get kidnapped by the Cerls, and I thought…I can’t help it, Hal. I will always love you.”
Hallie swallowed, taking a small step back. Niels’ hand fell back to his side. She shook her head and finally looked him back in the eyes once more. He had lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there when she’d left three years ago. A few scars peppered his brow; another snaked out from the corner of his lip. That one had been courtesy of Jack. All three of them had been throwing snowballs, and a rock got balled up in one of them. Jack had felt terrible. Hallie had ripped a bit of cloth from her skirt to help stop the bleeding. Hallie’s mother hadn’t been impressed with the added mending to her already full basket.
The ones on his brow could’ve been from the mines, or maybe they were from the years she hadn’t been home. She would never know, and that was okay. She had survived a few scrapes of her own since that she might never tell him about.
Stars, she’d gone on a whole death-defying mission in the fall that had gifted her a whole litany of new scars she’d rather not dwell on. There was only one person who could understand who she was now, who she’d become.
That man was not Niels Metzinger, no matter how much he wanted it to be.
Her thumb traced the sword pommel. A flush crept up her neck and onto her cheeks. “I…I can’t do this. Not now.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Niels, we’ve grown up. I’m not the Hallie you knew. I’ll never be her again.”
There. She’d said something, at least.
“Kase doesn’t know you like I do.” Niels rubbed the heel of his palm against the side of his head, almost as if he had a headache. He found her eyes once again. “He couldn’t protect you, but I can. I would’ve never let the Cerls kidnap you.”
Hallie’s mouth fell open, heat pounding against the wall. Niels had no idea. Absolutely no idea. He didn’t even realize how clueless he was. “I don’t need protecting.”
“Correa tortured you, forced those powers upon you. I wouldn’t have let it happen.”
“He would’ve killed you.”
Niels stepped closer, his face too close to hers. She couldn’t go back any further. “And I would’ve happily died if that meant you were safe.”
If this were a romance novel, Hallie knew the heroine would’ve grabbed him by the shirt and kissed him senseless. But this wasn’t some fantasy romance. This was reality. This was gritty and real and nothing like a book.
Hallie had something real, and it wasn’t anything bought with cheap flowers and over-the-top confessions of love. She slid sideways away from him. “Kase nearly did.” Despite her best effort, her words came out choked, but that didn’t stop her. “He’smy match in every way, and he sees me for my strengths, for my flaws, for everything I am. He challenges me. Encourages me. Drives me to be better than I am instead of wishing I’d go back to being the same old Hallie.”
“I never said that! I just…you’ve never even given me the chance to show you…” Niels took in a breath. “I’d been saving money. Enough to go to Kyvena. To find you.”
Shock radiated through her. She turned, her mouth dropping open slightly. “What?”
“Took me a few years, but I finally had enough. And then the attack happened.”
Her heart fluctuated between shock, fear, and anger. The latter won out. “And why do you think showing up in the capital would’ve changed anything?”
She spit the words as if they were acid. They burned her tongue and her throat. Everything, every word, touch, look, every feeling she’d bottled up until now finally caught flame. Niels’ eyes reflected her rage, though his was controlled, bridled.
“I would’ve moved mountains for you, and don’t you try to deny your feelings. Don’t you say you feel nothing at all for me.” Niels jammed his hand into his pocket and pulled out that Zuprium band. “I saved this ring for you. And only you. We had planned a life before you left, or have you forgotten?”
Hallie stared at his mother’s ring. The one he’d saved before her Burning.
“Look at me, Hal,” he pled. “You’re the only family I have left.”
