CHAPTER 30 #3
He trembles, pushing his fingers against his head.
“If the Queen knew my mother was part darkling, what the hell do you think they would do to me! They would kill me for sure. A bastard from the Ice King and The Queen of the Darklands that had darkling blood coursing through her?” he scuffs, a sarcastic laugh escaping his lips.
“Yeah, I’m the perfect son now, aren’t I? The perfect villain in their eyes.”
“You are no villain.”
“You have no idea what I am, Serene.”
“I believe I do,” I breathe out. “When you stop hiding behind this wall you put up for everyone, I see so much inside you. I wish you could see it too.”
He hovers over me, closing his eyes as he inhales. “How I wish I could see it too.”
“I don’t fear you, Koen. You being half darkling doesn’t mean anything.”
“You are wrong.” His eyes glisten. “It means everything. I should be dead for it.”
“Yet, you are alive. It must be for a reason.”
My mind flickers rampant with the memories, watching Koen, Florian, and I as young teens—the feeling overpowers me.
I fumble backwards, pressing my fingers on my head, and I tremble.
The pain, the flashes of light, the sick possibility of this place being my home, is too overwhelming.
If this is true, my father, the one who raised me, lied to me my whole life.
I wince, clenching my jaw tightly as he reaches out to touch me, but lets his hand fall in the water just as fast.
“Do I need to get you out of the water?” His voice shakes. “Are you in pain?”
“No.” My lips part. “But I do need to ask you something, and I need you not to think I have lost my damn mind.”
He crosses his arms, letting his thick brows pull together. “Go on.”
My trembling hands fall down my cheeks, to my neck. “Have we met before?” His body pulls backwards. “Not at the field of ash, I mean before that… a long time ago?”
“No. Why?”
“Would you come with me to these stones to see if you see what I see?”
He chuckles amusingly. “We are back at it with these stones now?”
“Not the stones that brought me here.” I take my wet hair, twisting it over my shoulders. “The stones in the Queen’s archive, I touched them and I saw… us.”
“You saw us?” His brows lift. “Now what were we doing?” His lips tug into a playful smirk. “Were we doing anything fun?”
“We were not…” My eyes roll, twisting the last strands of my hair to squeeze out the water. “You also weren’t hitting me over the head with broken branches, leaving me in dungeons…”
I drag out the words, watching his pearly-white teeth beam against his sun-kissed skin I just could melt into. He takes his fingertips, dancing them along the surface of the bright water, glancing between his movements and my own.
“Seems as if I was boring,” he taunts.
“You could never be boring, but…” I catch his attention once more. “You said you loved me.”
“Ahhh…” He licks his bottom lip, taking a daring step towards me, knowing if his chest collides with me, he could burn within seconds. His eyes lock onto mine before dropping his voice to a sudden whisper. “Did you say it back?”
“That's what you are concerned about?”
“Well…” He shrugs his shoulders, his brows lifting as his eyes sparkle with a mischievous glint. “Did you?”
I lift my chin, daring him to back away. “No.”
I lie.
Of course I said it back. I always feel inside me there is this feeling of home when I am around him. No matter how many times he pushes away, threatens my life, hurts me… I almost wonder if this isn’t truly who, or what, he wants to be. That I remember this good inside of him.
A safe feeling.
But until I know for sure, what those flashes of memories are to me… to us, I will lie.
“No fun,” he whispers slowly, leaning closer. If he moves anymore, our lips will touch, and he will be nothing more but ash in the wind.
“You don’t remember ever saying that? Or meeting me before the field of ash?” I hold in my breath, praying, begging, that he remembers something that can help me.
His head shakes. “The only woman I vowed to love was Lykia. And I never said the words, I love you. Not to her. Not to anyone.”
“You’ve never said, I love you?”
“I don’t love.” His shoulders shrug nonchalantly.
“That's sad.”
“That’s called protection.”
“What a weak protection,” I mutter.
He avoids my lingering gaze. “Call it what you want.”
I shrug. “I will.”
His lip slowly lifts into a soft smirk, his lingering gaze turning my stomach into knots.
“I suppose we should go then. Now that whatever this was, we are good. Friends.” I nod towards the opening, noticing the tick in his jaw when I mention the word, friend.
“The storm is coming. We should head to the Pyre before we have our second battle game tomorrow. I need you to go over the Fireninze with me when the sun rises, in case the Queen chooses for me to try and ride that one tomorrow.”
“What do I get in return?” He leans forward. “I can’t just wake up early to train you without anything in return…”
“Do you want me to fail tomorrow?”
His chin pulls closer towards me, making me shift back as I suck on air. “You wouldn’t fail. Even without my help.”
“You are too close,” I breathe out, my eyes dropping to his lips. “You know what could happen to you.”
His tongue glides on his bottom lip, pulling into a slight grin. “I’m not afraid of a little fire, Spark.”
“Even if that fire would kill you?” A brow of mine lifts, my eyes flickering between his lips that I can taste if I just lean in towards him, and his eyes. They darken with such an intensity that makes the air inside me trickle out. “You’d burn to ash. Just like that man in the pit.”
His eyes drop to my lips. “Fire could never kill me.”
“With the curse I have, it could.”
“Doubtful.”
I tilt my head, exposing the vulnerable curve of my neck to him as my fingers braid my damp hair.
His emerald eyes follow the line of my skin, lingering as if it's a rare sight soon to be lost. With a playful arch of my eyebrows, I taunt.
“Are you asking to die? Seems as if you are ignoring everything I am saying.”
“I ignore a lot of things.”
He inhales a tremulous breath, as if the very idea of never feeling the warmth of my touch is devouring him. In all honesty, it's devouring me too. The shadows in his eyes flicker with the fear of it, the agony of it. His movements grow tense and brittle.
So do mine.
Yet, there's a twisted pleasure in watching him suffer, mirroring the torment he has inflicted upon me all this time. Maybe the Gods have protected me from the hurt he would cause me. I wonder if they knew if I gave him my heart, he’d rip it apart.
Shattering it into pieces as if it were made of nothing more but glass. Fragile. Delicate. Weak.
My heart was never made strong enough to withstand a love with Koen. The Gods knew it.
He inhales before letting his lips open. “I think just the thought of my lips never tasting yours will kill me instead.”
“Koen…” I pull my gaze away with mixed emotions, the longing and pain he has caused me is maddening. Why do I feel weak when I am around him? How come my knees tremble, feeling as if they could give out at any moment when I just hear the sounds of his breathing?
“Serene.” As he speaks, he lets out a deep grunt. My stomach tightens with the sound of his voice saying my name. His jaw ticks every second as his eyes linger on every inch of my body, except my eyes.
My bottom lip quivers, letting out a shaky breath. “I thought you don’t trust yourself around—”
“Anyone I care about.” He cuts me off. “Who said I cared about you?”
“I suppose you never did. But you speaking to that woman about your duty to kill me shows you don’t.”
“Wait, how did…” The playfulness in his eyes is instantly gone, revealing sadness and regret as he takes a deep breath. “Just know whatever happens, I never meant to hurt you.”
My brows pull together. “I…”
“Shhhh…” He slowly shakes his head, leaning in to whisper against my ear. “When I say run, you run.”
My browns snap together and my chest rises. “What?” I hiss, my voice dropping to a silent whisper. “What the hell do you mean?”
“Something is here with us,” he mutters. “I sense it.”
He pulls away, his eyes flickering at the crystal lights that pulse blue hues, watching them intensely. “I know you are here, Darkling,” he growls, gradually pulling his curls into a bun. “Who sent you?”
Fire embers crack and pop, echoing around us as my eyes flicker side to side. The once cool air around us is now slowly being replaced with a scorching heat. Claws digging into the rocks begin to screech in my ears, causing me to flinch and cover them.
The lights of the crystals darken as soon as the sound of a creature slams into the gravel outside the Vitaei waters.
“Where have you been, Koen?” the creature's voice wails, a low grumble like the sounds of hell itself. I don’t move, but I know Koen has made eye contact with the beast as his eyes narrow into slits. The emerald flakes in his eyes are slowly being replaced by hues of a raging fire.
He said his damn name.
“He knows you?” I hiss, curling my hands into fists.
“Not now,” he orders, moving around me in a slow, yet deliberate motion. “What do you want, Darkling? Why have you come to the healing chambers of the Vitaei?”
“I am not here for you… but her.” Its voice sends chills down my spine, my breath hitching as I close my eyes. “Thank you for doing your duty and bringing us to her.”
“What.” My head whips towards him as he stands beside me. I catch sight of his eyes closing, inhaling a deep breath before raising his hand towards me as if he knows I am about to burst.
“Not a word, Serene.”
“Your duty?” I scream, heat flushing through my throat. My fingertips prickle with sparks underwater as I heave. “You brought whatever the hell this is to me?”
His eyes reflect the regret that is coursing through him. “I never wanted this. Believe me.”