Page 94 of Of Serpents and Ruins
I shook my head, the tears stinging. "No. I came back. You knew I was coming back. Before I died, you made me promise that if I found a way to live again, then I wouldn't come back until we knew how to end the curse."
"I hoped," he whispered, his voice rough. "That was all. Hope borne of desperation. Hope with no actual basis in reality."
"Then have hope for you, please! Even if you can't see a way through." I knotted my fists as I forced myself to meet his gaze. "Brandt, please! Don’t give up on me. I can’t…I can’t lose you again!"
"You have to go forward without me. You can’t waste time thinking about whether or not I am going mad," he said. "What I am telling you is hard. I know. I lived it. I carried on as best I could, holding you in my heart and praying for a miracle, but I had to live—"
"No! I spent my whole life on Earth feeling like everything was wrong, as if I was only a shadow in the wrong world. Everyone else was separate from me. Evera was one of the most real people I ever encountered. But even then, I just… I couldn’t. It was horrible. And now, now I finally have found you and the life I am supposed to have. My family."
The memories assailed me, amorphous and cold. They battered my mind. The person who I was searching for was here. Bound and chained, prepared for death.
"You expect me to give this up now?" I asked.
"You are a queen. My queen. Always. Forever. You have to let me go, just as I let you go, and then you will lead our people. You will find a way to save them."
"And never let anyone sit on my left," I whispered.
"What?" He tilted his head, his brow raising.
"You never moved on from me." I lifted my chin slowly, forcing myself to look at him through the sheen of tears.
"I never said I did. I haven’t always been the best king, and I may have kuvasted a few more than I should have." His gaze grew more intense. "And I never stopped loving you, but there’s no way back for me. You made your sacrifice, and you were brought back because you and the others sacrificed yourself to preserve that sacred tree. But that was magic Abba could control. Magic she could overpower." He referred to the priestess of the goddess.
"I could ask Abba to bring you back—"
"We already asked, love," he said softly. "She was powerless. Stella, love of my life and breath of my being, we have asked everyone. The Gola Resh is beyond us all. Beyond our magic. Beyond our knowledge. Our friends in kingdoms far from here have done all they can to save us, and no one can do anything. This plan to slay the Gola Resh, it’s all we have left. You have to go. Even if I am beyond saving."
"Don’t say that."
His voice sharpened. "Stella, I adore you. To see you again, even like this…it brings me comfort, but I did not always handle this as well as I should, and it has been lonely. So swear to me that when I am gone, you will find a way to live."
I needed him. Craved his touch. Longed for his love.
I forced myself to turn, trying desperately not to imagine his full lips against mine, his taste on my tongue, his heat encompassing me.
There wasn’t the same cloudiness as there had been in our other encounters. No dimness obscured my thoughts. Just desire. A pure and potent desire that begged me to run back to the arms of my beloved. But somehow I held back, arms tight over my breasts, Auntie Runa's warning echoing in my ears.
"I swear to you that I am not going to give up on you so long as there is breath in my lungs." My voice trembled. "I didn’t ask you to give up on me. Sometimes letting go is wrong."
In my mind, though, I did hear myself asking him to let me go. It played out before my eyes, vivid and painful. Tears in my eyes, tears in his. This wasn’t the same, I told myself.
"Don’t you dare give up on me, Brandt. I can’t imagine how hard this has been for you, to have had to endure with this curse eating at your mind and chipping away at your sanity. You waited for me fifty years, but please, even if you can’t believe for you, know that I still believe we are going to find a way. There’s no one else for me. Only you. Always you. Even on Earth, no one was right."
The air grew heavy around us.
The corners of his mouth pulled up softly, that hint of a dimple returning. "I wish I could make love to you one more time—"
"It doesn’t matter," I whispered. "Auntie Runa said we should not be together like that, that it would just make things tougher."
"I have no intention of leaving this room until I'm cured. I'm too much of a liability," he said, his voice guttural, his expression heavy with need. His gaze raked over my body, heat blistering in it. "Stella…I need—"
My name was barely out of his mouth before I flung myself at him, my lips slamming over his.
STELLA
Ihad to feel him. Had to be with him. Had to taste him.
My mouth crashed over his, my body flush against him. Already, he was hard as marble. I thrust my fingers up along the planes of his face as I leaned up and kissed him as if my life depended upon it.
