CHAPTER 21
“The stones are consumed with the magic from the Gods. It has the ability to transport those who hold it to another Realm like the speed of light. However, if you are not worthy enough to hold the stone, you’ll be scorched and left with only ashes in the air.” - Book of Azure
I GASP, GRASPING AT MY neck for the oxygen to flow through.
My skin burns as if lava has been poured all over me. None has, but yet, the snow sizzles around me. A puddle of cold water from melted snow thickens around me, sloshing under me as I push my trembling body off of the freezing ground.
My fingertips tingle, feeling an electrical rush vibrating up to my shoulders. I didn’t die.
“How the hell are you alive?” I hear Koen gurgling in pain as he grabs his shoulder, leaning into the snow.
“I don’t know.” I stare at my trembling hands. No blood. No new wounds. Only my palms, reddened as if I touched a hot stove. The pain is brutal, but at least I am alive.
“I’m going to kill him,” Koen growls, trying to catch his breath through the words.
“Oh, stop it.” My eyes narrow in, watching Koen get angrier by the second as he thinks of what Florian just did to him. To me.
“He could have got you killed, Spark.” His eyes lock onto mine, and I swiftly look away.
No. I will not let his eyes make my insides burn with fire. A fire I want to force into rage, not… this desire. I can’t. I will not let this fire inside me win.
“I’m fine. Look.” I toss my arms up.
“But we didn’t know for certain if you would be fine.” His elbow digs into the snow, letting his head fall back as his tousled curls that have fallen from his bun sway. “He. Is. Dead.” He grunts the words, forcing them out of his lips as he catches his breath.
“You are being irrational.” I watch him struggle to stand.
“You have seen nothing yet.”
I roll my eyes. “Did the stone unleash the cranky side of Koen?”
Koen grunts. “Very funny, Serene.”
His palms dig into the snow as he lifts his body, his foot slipping as he falls back down. “I hate traveling through the stones.” His voice deepens, catching a glance at me. “Traveling through them weakens me… can I have a hand?”
I scuff, rolling my eyes away from his pitiful glare. “Like you helped me back at the tower… where you left me to die?”
His eyes narrow into slits. “I already told you, I knew Florian would see you. He wouldn’t have left you.”
My boots are drenched from trudging through the slushy remnants of snow that melted around where my body laid as I finally reach Koen and pull him to his feet.
I deeply exhale, lifting his massive body off of the ground.
Snow is caked around his pants and shoulder, intertwined in his chestnut hair.
His hands clasp mine, sending a fiery jolt through my veins that nearly takes my breath away, but I pull him up with all the might I have.
Which is hardly any compared to those from Azure.
His chest collides with mine, towering above me as a single curl falls over his brow.
His eyes dart intensely between mine, nearly making me fumble backwards as I lift my chin, feeling the warmth of his breath beat against my skin.
But when his eyes fall down to my lips, my breathing hitches and I push him back.
“No. Stop doing whatever this is.” I frantically rub my forehead, looking away from him and scan the area for any signs of Florian.
“I was just shocked to see you alive.” He dusts the snow off of him, making it dance in the freezing wind. “No one survives the travel of the Light Stone unless you have the Royal blood or the pendant from the Gods.”
“It's not just here, right now where you…” I falter, searching desperately for the right words. My stomach squeezes into knots, a feeling that I wish I had control over, “do this thing with your eyes and lips, gazing at me like I'm some…”
I stop talking, rubbing my lips together as my shoulders rise. My hands raise to my face before I shakingly rub them over my eyes and down my neck. “Whatever you are doing, whatever game this is, I need you to stop.”
Our breaths puff into white clouds and chills run over my bare arm and neck as I stare at him.
“It’s no game.” He crosses his arms, the dragon scales cracking under his movement. “Why do you always feel I am up to no good?”
“Because that’s all you have shown me?” My eyes close for a second before glancing over towards the frozen waterfall of the Ice Nation. “Just keep your distance, and let's find the archives. If you ever look at me the way you just did, I will remove your damn eyeballs.”
He chokes on a laugh. “Alright, there is the spark I saw in you the first time I met you.”
My eyes roll towards him, my jaw clenching. “Keep away, eyes off of me, and let’s find Florian.”
“Distance won’t keep me from looking at you.”
“Look all you want, Koen,” I grunt, taking long strides through the snow.
“No fun,” he teases. As I halt, I snap my gaze over my shoulder towards his mischievous grin that tugs on his lips.
“Find your way back to Lykia. You vowed to her, and vows must not be broken.” My eyes burn, but from the weather of the Ice Nation. Nothing else. “She is the woman you need to be looking at, not me, Koen.”
“Is that a hint of jealousy I hear?” he teases, his thick brow arching as he trails behind me.
I roll my eyes, letting out an exaggerated sigh. “Jealous? Please. I'm just sorry for any woman who's ever been foolish enough to hand you their heart. They should have been smarter, not be deceived by the act you play. I see right through you.”
“If you see right through me,” he pauses, halting mere inches away from my body, gazing down towards me, “what am I feeling at this moment?”
His emerald eyes glisten as he rubs his lips, revealing the healed scar along his bottom lip as he boldly takes another step forward, erasing any distance left between us.
“What do I want at this moment?” His voice drops to a whisper. I swallow and freeze, even if my insides are scorching.
Say nothing, Serene. Feel nothing. My hands curl into fists at my side as he leans down, his breath tickling my ear. “Do you feel that spark deep inside you when I am near you?”
I exhale slowly, watching my breath form white clouds, dancing in the air from my lips.
He calls it a spark, but I refuse to call it that.
Not a spark. More like an irritation, a consuming rage.
A burning desire to drive my knee into the very part of him that would finally make him groan in agony and release me from whatever the hell this is.
“Spark?” I tilt my head, glaring into his playful eyes as our noses almost touch. “More like a thorn jabbed into my stomach, too deep to ever remove but painful at all times. Stuck inside me forever. You’re my thorn.”
A small grin pulls at the corner of his lips. “I’ll gladly be your thorn. Thorns are always connected to the most beautiful things.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” My voice trembles as his eyes fall to my lips.
“If I am your thorn, then I am connected to you. My most beautiful thing.”
I am airless.
My body pulses with a scorching heat, despite the frozen air around us.
My lips are irresistibly drawn to him, as if under a spell, driven by a hunger to touch him.
As if I have been starving this whole time.
A blaze courses through me, sizzling my senses as well as blinding me to what I am doing.
I yearn to taste his lips, to devour this craving.
Our eyes lock, darting to our lips with a desire that cannot be contained.
The ache to just let this happen is violently ripping through me, each heartbeat thundering in my chest, my body trembling with urgency as the space between us vanishes.
He is so close. Too close.
If either of us moves, our lips will collide.
My body burns, almost on the brink of combustion.
“No,” I whisper, the heat from my breath beating between us. “I will not be just another woman for you to toy around with. I won’t let this happen.”
“You will never be just another woman to me.”
“I can’t do this. I won’t.” I push away from him, clearing my throat and adjusting my body. My eyes flicker, blurring as I look away from him. I told myself I wouldn’t feel, I wouldn’t love anyone from this Realm, because I must return home.
Maybe the archives will have a way to curse me to never love.
He pulls back, adjusting his shirt and daggers, avoiding my direction. “You really find me that awful, don’t you?”
“I just don’t trust you.” I side-eye him, watching his lips pull between his teeth before letting out a shaky breath.
“I’m glad you don’t. You have always been smart, which is what I admire the most about you.” He shoots a piercing glance my way, his emerald eyes filled with a mix of longing and regret. His eyes drop to the snow. “I should have kissed you before the truth shatters everything.”
“What truth?” My voice heightens.
“Where the hell have you two been?” Florian darts from around the trees, his voice in a frantic as he catches his breath. “I have been searching everywhere for the two of you! We don’t have much time!”
“You could have killed her! Why would you risk that?” Koen takes a powerful stride toward his brother. “What is going on with you lately?”
“But she didn’t die!” Florian bellows, his eyes drifting from Koen’s to meet mine. “The elder I fear… was right. I had to try this after I heard Queen Antivianna talking to Skie about the possibility of this. She wants Serene dead.”
“No! The elder wasn’t right, Florian!” I screech. “I am not who she says I am!”
“She was. She is… right. I have just been blind to see this.” Florian walks closer to us and he grabs my shoulders. “How could I have not remembered you?”
Koen’s nostrils flare, clearing his throat as he takes Florian’s hand off my shoulder. “Unsure what the hell this is, brother, but like you said, we don’t have much time.”