Chapter 26 #2
‘Rose,’ Ruben’s voice trembles. ‘I feel … I feel different.’
‘What do you mean, different?’ Terror grips me as I whirl to assess him. Is he hurt? Am I hurting him? Stopping him from breathing? Cutting him with my ice? No. His chest is rising and falling normally, and I can’t see any marks on him, but there’s fear in his eyes.
I’ve done something. I must have.
‘Ruben, what is it? What have I done?’
‘I feel … I feel …’ He trails off, steps away from me slightly, and rubs his fingers together. A spark forms between them. A spark that grows until there’s a full-on fireball resting on the palm of his hand.
I gape.
Ruben made fire.
He’s never been able to do that.
My stomach hollows as my hand flies up to my mouth. ‘Tell me that’s something you’ve learned to do recently?’ I whisper.
He shakes his head, his eyes still fixed wonderingly on the fire dancing on his skin, as if he cannot believe what he’s seeing.
‘No,’ he whispers. ‘Absolutely not. Mum could do that, of course, but I’ve never made a flame, Rose.
Not once.’ He claps his hands together, vanquishing the flame, and then he calls it forth again.
This time there’s no spark. It’s straight into a full flame that envelops his hand, so large I can feel the heat radiating from it.
‘Fuck!’ Ruben jumps back, but he’s not quick enough. The flames catch on the edge of a branch next to us. ‘Fuck. I … I—’
‘I’ve got this!’ I push him back and focus on the flame. If I can create ice daggers, then surely I can stop a small fire?
I’m panicking now, and nothing is happening.
‘You need to be angry!’ Ruben says in fear. ‘Kyor isn’t good enough for you. He’s going to break your heart. He’s a piece of shit that doesn’t deserve you. He’s going to throw you over for some court bitch.’
With a guttural yell, ice jets from my fingers at the flames, putting them out.
Ruben lets out a sigh. ‘Thank the Mother.’
Silence swells between us, perforated only by our panting breaths and the complete confusion that fills my mind as I stare at the charred black branches, now dripping as the ice melts into crystal-clear water.
I’ve made ice twice now by calling on those powers I knew were within me.
But Ruben … what the fuck did I do to Ruben?
I turn to look at my friend, only to see he’s looking at me with a mix of nostalgia and regret. ‘You’re never going to pick me, are you, Rosey?’ The soft sadness remains in his eyes even as a weak smile lifts his lips.
My heart is thundering from nearly setting the forest on fire, he’s just got magic from fuck knows where, and this really doesn’t feel like the right time to have this conversation. But Caz’s words ring in my ears. He needs this conversation, no matter how much I want to run away from it.
‘I adore you,’ I begin. ‘You were my only friend in the most difficult time of my life. You were more than a friend, you know that, and you’ll always hold a special place in my heart—’
‘But you don’t love me.’ His quiet statement is filled with hurt.
‘Not the way you deserve,’ I admit, my heart constricting painfully. ‘I want you to have a love that burns. A love that means you’d do anything for the other person.’
‘The way Kyor would for you.’
I shake my head. ‘No. He … he chose his crown – his duty – over me. So no, he won’t do anything for me.’ It still hurts. Still crushes me that after all we’d been through, Kyor didn’t stand up for me. For us. Didn’t tell the truth about my mother when I needed him to.
It makes me ache because I want her name cleared, want her memory honoured.
For all his fancy words, I wasn’t sure Kyor ever loved me like I did him. Even now, I still feel like there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him.
And knowing that, admitting that, just makes me feel pathetic.
‘Regardless of the situation between Kyor and me, I—’ The words choke in my throat because I desperately don’t want to hurt Ruben.
‘You’ll never choose me,’ he repeats, resigned.
I fall silent. I can’t deny it, even though it feels like my heart is breaking.
‘I never pushed you for more, back in the slums,’ he admits. ‘Mum always urged me to tell you how I felt. Maybe, if I had, things would be different.’
‘Ruben—’
‘No feelings, we said, and I knew it was true for you, but I was all in from the start. You know that right? I was all in.’
‘I’m sorry—’ I try, but he still has more to say, and he deserves to speak. He deserves to have me listen.
‘I knew if I pushed for more, you’d end things. So I didn’t. I pretended I didn’t love you either. Took the scraps that I could get, and I was grateful for them.’
Tears streak down my cheeks. ‘I’m sorry,’ I repeat. ‘You deserved so much more than that. You still do.’
‘Yes.’ He nods. ‘I do.’ He brushes the tears from my face and pulls me into a warming embrace as he presses a gentle kiss to my forehead. ‘Some part of me will always love you,’ he murmurs, and my heart breaks a little more.
Here is a man who loves me, who is kind and selfless and true, and though I wish with all that I am that I could love him instead of Kyor, I don’t.
Ruben releases me and turns and walks out of the clearing, leaving me alone with my broken fucking heart and one hell of a headache.