Chapter 23 #2
About to sing a little girl to sleep despite having half the world resting on his wounded shoulders.
And I wonder how I ever believed not falling in love with this male was an option. How I ever believed I was capable of pulling myself from his atmosphere.
He makes it to the mezzanine, disappearing from my line of sight as Korie continues to cry. As Pyrok and Roan continue to root through the cupboard, quietly bickering while I stand by the door, looking at the ground, the walls. Unsure of what to do with my hands, my feet … anything.
And then Kaan starts to play. A slow, tender tune that lilts down from above and strums the frayed strings of my heart, rattling me to the core. Makes something inside me creak, groan and—
Shift.
My feet move of their own accord. Up the stairs, across the sparse mezzanine, past Korie’s bedraggled minder, who dips her head as we cross paths.
Coming to a flood of warm light spilling from an open doorway, I place my hand on the frame and peer past into a thoughtfully furnished room swept in yellow tones, small handmade Moltenmaws and bundled moons dangling from the ceiling.
And beneath the majesty of a beautifully sculpted headboard, Korie’s tucked amongst a creamy quilt, thumb in her mouth as she hiccups through tight breaths, the skin around her big green eyes mottled red from her tears.
I shift enough to follow her line of sight.
See Kaan on the ground with one leg stretched, brows pinched, loose lengths of hair framing his strong features, back to the wall despite the pain he’s surely in.
A mighty warrior carved straight off a bloody battlefield and placed in this small room of soft colors and shapes, cradling the precious instrument as though it has a heartbeat of its own.
An odd sense of familiarity fists the contents of my chest cavity, lurching it all into the back of my throat. Like I’m looking at a painting I’ve seen before but can’t remember when or where. I just know I’ve seen it.
He looks up.
Our gazes meet with the force of clashing stars … then he opens his mouth and sings. A robust baritone unlike anything I’ve heard before. Bearing the depth and sturdiness of Bulder’s voice, softened with a raining sadness that’s soul deep.
Raw.
Agonizingly beautiful.
My skin prickles, eyes sting. Every muscle in my body aches to buckle down into a ball and fold around my swelling heart like a parchment lark. A feeling that only intensifies as he breaks my gaze and looks at Korie with all the tenderness of a dragon guarding a clutch of eggs.
My gaze drifts to the youngling, her breaths deeper, blinks slowing. Any sadness gone from her face. And for some unknown reason, it all just …
Hurts.
The entire vision hurts.
I turn from it, moving down the stairs with quick and silent steps, past a frowning Pyrok now nursing a basket of suspicious-looking bottles.
I’m out the front door before I pull my next breath, filling my lungs with a gulp of cold air that does nothing to ease the rising pressure in my chest. A pressure that feels like—
My Other.
Shit.
I charge across the courtyard. Order the guards to let me out as things inside me begin to bang about. As something … loosens.
Panic rises in unison with the bulging pressure of whatever is currently bludgeoning toward my surface.
“Creators,” I mutter, tapping my boot against the ground, watching those bars rise slower than the aurora. Half convinced these guards are about to become Other chow.
Perhaps if I don’t look within, she’ll just … stay where she belongs?
I grit my teeth and pace back and forth in short, sharp turns until the bars grind up just far enough for me to drop to the ground and roll free.
And I sprint, climbing the jagged stairway two steps at a time, just breaking past the cage of snow-covered trees when that pressure explodes with the cracking, sloshing sounds of my shattering icy lake—
But my Other doesn’t come.
Instead, I’m plowed with a moment.
A memory—
I drag my fingers across Kaan’s sheets, his pillow. Gently strum the strings of his beautiful lute, struck by the baritone melody that makes me yearn for his voice, his presence …
Him.
I swallow, tighten my trembling grip on the lark heavy in my hand. Not fluttering for freedom, despite the fact that I pinched every fold in place myself—correctly. Careful and precise, with all the love the message itself does not contain.
Perhaps the lark knows I don’t want to set it free. For Kaan to read the words within.
It should say “I love you” more times than there are stars in the sky. It should tell him that he’s going to—
No.
This is the only way I can protect him. The only way I can keep him alive.
The strings are still vibrating with a droll sound as I rip my gaze from the lute, pulling Kaan’s málmr from my pocket. I don’t trust myself to so much as look at the precious carving one last time before setting it atop his pillow.
I drop the lark and turn, the sound of fluttering parchment wings stomping my heart. A flare of pain and then … nothing. Like the organ just gave up.
Perhaps I’ll never feel again.
Perhaps I don’t deserve to—
I groan, breaths coming hard and fast, making my head spin.
Or is it the world that’s spinning?
I drop to the ground and slam my back against the stone cliff, clawing my fingers down into the snow, wrestling my lungs into longer, deeper contractions. In through my nose, out through my mouth.
Repeat.
With each inhale, I focus on broadening my rib cage, trying to make enough space to swallow the memory and the surge of unsteady emotion. But every time I shove, it slips away. Like silt draining between my fingers.
I blame that fucking teardrop stone. Blame the bits of Rayne’s morbid language infesting my system, softening parts of me that were perfectly hard before. Perfectly stable.
Perfectly, securely stuffed away.
I blame my lake, now a few feet lower than it was before this latest assault from the past. Like its slowly draining away, revealing more of … everything.
I reach into the pocket of my cloak, curl my fingers around Kaan’s málmr, and squeeze. Achingly aware of the many jostled weights still scattered about my Other’s den—this memory a mere pebble.
A single dot in a star-filled sky.
Memories I’d planned to ignore for the rest of my existence, but maybe that was wishful thinking …
Maybe Elluin’s greatest mistakes are doomed to haunt me. To rise up and beat me black and blue until I’m strong and worthy enough for the male who’s captured my cold, calloused heart.