Chapter 38 #2
He laughed without humor. “There are many reasons we won’t work.”
“Peace, please,” I begged. “Trust me. We’re perfect together.” My inner fire couldn’t have led me astray, and now my soul wanted Wyn alone. “Please do not doubt me.”
He once again leaned back to meet my gaze. “Then what’s that?”
“What?”
Gesturing to the stylus sitting behind me, he said, “Vorjyn told me it belonged to the person you actually want.”
I blinked. “Wyn…”
“And how do you know we will work? How are you so sure? I’m a mess of worry, and you’re calm about us.
We are not close in age. We are from different stations and backgrounds.
We have nothing besides our attraction to tie us together.
” He slammed his fists against my chest, eyes wet.
“So how do you know? Or are you pretending? Do you not actually want me?”
It was time to tell him. I hated sharing my inner fire for many reasons, but two main ones stuck out.
The first was my father. He had true precognition rather than perfect intuition.
People expected me to be like him, and I wasn’t.
I didn’t have the full picture, only a feeling that would turn out correct.
The second reason was that people expected me to have all the answers, which I didn’t. No one did.
But Wyn was mine, and I’d hurt him. He deserved to know, to know all of me.
I swiveled, turning so Wyn could see the shelf behind me more easily. His eyebrows drew together while a frown marred his perfect face; I smoothed the tension. I gestured to the stylus that always sat right behind me, close at hand if I ever needed to leave quickly.
“I don’t understand, unless you are telling me it does belong to the person you actually want,” he said.
“This is my most valuable object.”
His eyes turned glassy, and his breath picked up.
“Look at it,” I said, pulse racing. “Please.”
The stylus floated off the stand and into Wyn’s grasp. “It’s a cheap stylus cadets sometimes use. Have you had this since then? No, you said it was important.”
“I got that nine cycles ago.”
“I don’t understand, Monqilcolnen.”
Shaking, I took the stylus from him and flipped it, so he could see the rough etching, like it had been made by a claw. It was a single letter.
“Wyn,” he read, then froze. His eyes opened wide, shooting up to meet mine. “I put my name on everything. It was a habit from my care home. We labelled everything.” He shook his head, voice soft as he said, “This is—was mine.”
I dragged my thumb over his cheek. “It’s yours.”
“What? I mean… What?” He shook his head again, eyes wide.
I chuckled softly, though my pulse thrummed in my ears and my limbs trembled.
“Nine cycles ago, I went to the academy to teach a lesson for an old instructor of mine. When I was leaving, a very excited new cadet ran right into me. He was the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.
He barely looked at me, offering his throat and apologizing before running off.
But he dropped his stylus, and I picked it up. That was you, of course.”
Wyn didn’t look touched. In fact, it was the opposite. His arms crossed and his mouth flattened into a harsh line. “You kept this because I’m beautiful? Is that all this is? Some weird obsession? Some need to have another trinket on your shelf?”
I snagged Wyn close when he tried to leave my lap. “Please let me finish. Please don’t leave me, Peace.”
He grunted.
Keeping him tight against me, I continued, “I didn’t keep this because you are lovely, even though you are, or because I want to collect you. I don’t. I kept this because I knew you were going to be important to me.”
“What?” His arms fell to his sides.
I pressed a kiss between his furrowed eyebrows, breathing him in. “My inner fire is perfect intuition.”
“What?” he repeated louder.
“I have a sense that something is going to happen sometimes, and it’s always right.” I hastily continued before he could say anything, “I don’t have visions, and I don’t know everything, but sometimes my inner fire gives me hints of what’s to come.”
I cupped his cheek with one hand while the other remained planted on the small of his back. “I knew from the second I saw you that you would one day be important to me, exceedingly so. I didn’t know exactly how, only that you and I would meet again.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
“We haven’t been together long, Peace, and I didn’t wish to upset you.”
Wyn shook his head. “Why didn’t you tell me back then?”
I frowned.
“I don’t remember this, Monqilcolnen, but I would’ve been thrilled if you’d chased after me, told me who you were and what you knew. I was so alone.”
I closed my eyes as I tried to articulate my thought process from way back then. “I wanted to. So badly. I looked you up. I stared at you so many times, telling myself to simply introduce myself and see where it went. I even thought of appealing to the Crystal to check if you were my soulmate.”
“Why didn’t you?” he demanded, crossing his arms.
“Your age.”
“I was an adult, Monqilcolnen.”
“Indeed, just an adult. Fifteen,” I replied, running my fingers down his braid. “But I knew my greater age and station would be an unfair power balance. You would have given up everything for me, Wyn. Wouldn’t you have?”
He looked away.
“Just like you planned to when we talked about me becoming captain. Back then, you would have sacrificed yourself. No academy, no dreams, no projects. Nothing.”
“Not nothing. I would’ve had you,” he snapped.
I held him close. My inner fire might have said “not yet,” but the choice had ended with me. It had been my decision. “You have me now.”
“I could have had you then,” he replied, waving a hand and his tail thrashing. “I wouldn’t have been alone.”
“You’re right, but you might have resented me later. We’ll never know, but, Wyn, you needed a chance to live. A chance that wasn’t within my shadow or forced to follow me. I am so much older than you.”
“It wasn’t your decision to make.”
I offered my throat in concession, but I did not and would not regret the decision I’d made. I had protected Wyn. I would always protect him.
“Why didn’t you tell me three cycles ago on the Admiral Ven?” he demanded.
“Because you were so terrified of me. I wanted to, though. I wanted to see what we would mean together. My inner fire said ‘not yet,’ just as it had when I met you, but in the end, I didn’t pursue you because you fled whenever I so much as looked at you.”
“You kept telling that story of me puking.”
That had blown up in my face. “Urgg once said vomit bonded people. I wanted to link our names together. I was claiming you in a small way. That’s why I told it so much. Also, it was the only story I could tell of us. The only one I had the right to share.”
Wyn shook his head. “Urgg is always right.”
I chuckled, pulling him close for a kiss, but he turned his face.
He pushed off my lap, and I released him. “I need time, Monqilcolnen.”
“I understand.”
Wyn gave me the stylus, and I returned it to its stand. He stared at me for a moment. “I’m not mad. I just…” He shook his head.
“I am not going anywhere, Peace.”
Wyn didn’t say anything more before he rushed out.
“Oh, my Peace, please return to my arms soon.”