Chapter 14 Silver #2
But I cut her off. “Do you know, I’ve spent so much time trying to understand your different parts that not only can I tell which part of you I’m talking to, I can even tell, when you have multiple parts in you at one time, which one is leading?”
Her lips press together as though she’s trying to figure out my point.
I wish I didn’t have to say it out loud.
“The way you were looking at him just now, Mance? That was all Heart.” The name comes out with a bitter edge to it that I can’t hold back.
Her eyes flare, and I finally have her attention. “You think I have feelings for him?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
She shakes her head, not even bothering to yell back. She only mutters, under her breath, “I don’t believe this.”
“Don’t,” I lash out. “Don’t act like I’m making things up. Something shifted between you two; I saw it!”
“Yes,” she concedes. “Something did.”
And as soon as she says it, it becomes clear that I wasn’t expecting her to, because I didn’t brace for it at all.
The breath evaporates from my lungs and pain rips through me.
Immediately, I wish I could take this whole conversation back.
That I could undo the last several minutes and decide to go into Reltas’s office instead.
Then I could be there right now, rummaging through his things and merrily unraveling all his sinister plots.
Instead of here, in the forest, getting my heart ripped out.
Slowly, Mance turns and approaches me. I fight the urge to run, like Kiar did. If I’m honest, I think the only thing that stops me is that I’m afraid she would let me. That she wouldn’t chase after.
When she reaches me, she puts one hand on my cheek and I wince, certain she’s about to let me down gently.
“What shifted is that I understand him better now,” she says, “in a way that I wasn’t expecting.”
Stop it, I think. This is torture. I should have run, after all.
“But what I can’t believe,” she presses on, “is that you think there’s room for anyone in that part of my heart but you. Do you really not know how I feel about you?”
I’m so focused on tensing for the blow that I don’t immediately realize what she’s saying. And when I do, I’m not ready to believe it. There’s a tightness in my chest that won’t ease. “What do you mean?” I ask, voice taut.
She takes a necklace out of her shirt and holds it up between us. A small leather pouch on a metal chain. “Do you know why I’ve been wearing this ever since we left the cliffs?” she asks.
Seems like a trick question. “No?”
She takes it off, then puts the pouch into my hand. It’s soft against my palm. “Open it.”
I pull on the drawstrings and find a pile of bruised, pathetic-looking petals inside. At first I don’t understand.
And then I do.
These are the flowers I gathered for her, the ones I left splayed on the marble after storming out on our argument.
“You noticed them,” I breathe. She noticed me. Even while we were fighting.
In fact, not only did she notice, but she took the time to pick the flowers up. To turn them into a treasure, one she could carry with her. My heart stutters, and the band around my chest eases, just a little.
But then I look at the browning petals, the bent stems and wilted leaves, and I feel ashamed. “They’re so . . . withered.”
“I don’t care,” she says stubbornly. “You gave them to me.”
I shake my head. “You deserve better. I should pick you new ones.”
“You do that,” she answers, with unexpected force. “Pick me new ones every day. I’ll take them all. But even when you do, I’m not getting rid of these. Because I want everything you’re willing to give me, Silver. No matter how broken. As long as it’s from you.”
An incredulous laugh escapes my lips, and the fist in my pocket unclenches as warmth washes over me. The tightness in my chest cracks, before finally releasing completely, and I’m left feeling lightheaded.
This . . . this is why she’s my candle in the storm.
Almost in awe, I pull the drawstring shut again, then hook the chain back around her neck where it belongs, realizing for the first time that it’s probably made of silver.
And suddenly, whatever I saw pass between her and Reltas doesn’t bother me.
As the metal settles against her skin, she peers up at me through lowered lashes, and the glow that I love to see is burning softly in her eyes. I cup her face in both hands, letting it light me up from within. “Thank you,” I say. “For wanting them. For wanting me.”
I don’t quite realize how else the sentence might be taken until her gaze lowers to my lips.
But when it does, I still completely, a new kind of tension building.
No version of Mance has kissed me since that first night, when Asset decided it wasn’t wise. And I can see Asset in her eyes now, calculating.
I also see Heart, though. Longing.
So I wait. Not wanting to pressure her. Hardly even daring to breathe.
The forest seems to quiet, and the darkness is a wall around us, shutting out the rest of the world. Like this moment is really only us. Only ours.
And then she leans up and glides her lips softly over mine.
I exhale, thrilled and eager, bringing one hand up to run through her hair as my eyes flutter shut.
It’s clear that Heart is still leading, because this kiss is tender.
Slow. Sweet. There are breaths and there are caressing fingers, but they’re never frantic.
They’re affirming, grounding. Kind. Warmth spreads across my skin, even in the chill of the woods, and I sink into it, reveling in the emotion I can taste in the corners of her mouth.
When we pull apart, we don’t separate completely.
Our foreheads stay pressed together, and when I open my eyes, hers are still closed, as though she wants to linger in the moment as much as I do.
Our breaths mist and mingle together in the cold bite of the evening as I stroke the corner of her jaw with one thumb.
“I—” she starts. But then she stops, seeming to wrestle with herself. After a minute, she swallows, looks pained, and tries again. “You have to know that I—”
And in a shocking burst of insight, I suddenly do know what she’s trying to say.
That she . . . loves me.
A joy so deep it’s almost painful explodes through my entire body.
I think I see stars. And after the initial burst of stunned elation wears off, it turns into something deeper.
The knowledge wraps itself around me like a blanket.
No, like armor, because I feel like I can take on anything as long as I can be certain of this one single fact. That this girl loves me.
It’s dizzying to feel so sure. Because, normally, without the certainty of words, I know I would doubt.
I would question. But right now, Poise isn’t here to hide what Mance is feeling behind carefully composed expressions.
The mask has been ripped off and her midnight eyes are blazing with emotion.
With the things that she feels about me.
She loves me. She really, really does. Just like I love her.
Mance opens her mouth again, in another attempt to give voice to the sentiment, Heart and Asset probably warring in her mind, but I silence her with a second kiss.
And this one is more profound, more intense.
New, even as it is achingly familiar. I pour my own feelings into it, trying to echo the same kind of certainty that she just gave me.
Trying to convey, through touch alone, that I belong to her. That I always will.
“It’s okay,” I say when I finally pull back, a little breathless.
“I don’t need the words right now. We’ll say them when all of this is over.
When there aren’t any reasons left to hold back.
” It will mean the most then, and it’s not something I would ever want to force. For a gift like that, I can wait.
She seems surprised, even a little embarrassed. But then her face sets and she nods, looking both pained and relieved at once.
And for now it’s enough.
We’re enough.
In fact, we’re everything.