Chapter 59 #5
“You love me,” I whisper, this time not a question at all.
The words taste foreign on my tongue, feeling too large and pure for me to process.
“Even though I’m a recovering cynic? Am someone who would prefer to spend their days amongst flowers and herbs instead of people?
Even though the left side of my body is covered in scars from my actions and” —my words hitch, my chest bloated from feeling so many things at once— “even though I am tainted, having been defiled and belittled in so many ways… you still love me?”
He slides his hand over my cheek, cupping it with such tenderness.
“You are my salvation, Lyra. I feel complete when I’m with you, and I feel lost when I’m without you.
So, yes… I love you. For your good. For your bad.
For the strength you carry in spite of your past. For the kindness you offer others because of it.
I love every piece of you, jagged or not. ”
I hold his adoring gaze, harboring the radiance of stars inside me as I do. “And I love you,” I whisper, my throat too clogged with emotion to do anything but. “For all that you are. For all that you continue to be. I love you, Draven. So much.”
Draven beams, tugging me closer to him so he can kiss me. And when he does…
Gods.
He kisses me with the delicate beauty of cherry blossoms. With the unending dedication of a sunset, always finding its way back to the horizon.
He kisses me in the shades of different colors, with the passions of different musics.
And I realize there will never come a time where I could possibly get enough of his lips being pressed against mine. Get enough of him.
He is the steady arms where I go to feel safe.
The place I roam to where my worries and doubts may quiet.
He is the best kind of good I have ever known.
Someone who looks at me and allows me to feel seen at every intrinsic level.
A person who holds me when I’m not at my best yet encourages me to get back up again.
I love him. I choose him.
And he has chosen to love me in return.
There is something quite beautiful in the simplicity of that, I can’t help but decide. Something which feels bigger than us yet entirely controlled by us simultaneously. Oddly, for a brief moment, it makes me think of Meiji.
He would smile at the paint I have brushed onto my canvas, I think.
“I am yours,” I breathe onto Draven’s lips. “And you are mine.”
“Always,” he confirms, sweeping his thumb along my cheek once more.
I study him for slow heartbeats, my eyes flicking to the circular scar marring his skin just below his collarbone. For so long I’ve wanted to ask, and in the face of this cradling security we have offered each other, I know now is the right time to finally do it. “Draven?”
“Yes?”
“Will you tell me how you got that scar?”
I remember when we were together in a moonlit cave, beneath the glowing dyotana and a glistening waterfall surrounded by my favorite flower.
I remember how he made me feel and the way he touched me.
Yet when I had touched his scar, I also remember the way he receded back into himself, rattled yet clearly not wanting to be.
Draven stiffens, then relaxes. “It was originally a brand mark burned into my skin. Specifically, House Dalmar’s sigil.
I…” He trails off, his voice sounding tight in his throat.
“Well, when I decided I could no longer bear the mark being branded onto me, I disfigured it with my own hot iron, deciding I would much rather have a mangled scar than wear a Dalmar sigil any longer.”
My chest tightens. “So when I touched it once…”
“It reminded me of who I once was and what I lost. No one had ever touched my scar before—not even when it was only a brand mark. I couldn’t bear it.
And if I am being entirely truthful with you, Lyra, it scared me when you did because, for a brief moment, I saw all that I stood to lose. Was temporarily reminded of that pain.”
My fingers trace soothing lines down his arm. “I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t be. Because just as quickly as it was there, it was gone. You know why?”
Now it is I who shakes my head.
The corner of his lip curves gently. “Because I learned the tradeoff to accepting love is accepting pain, and I will feel any pain to have your love.”
My heart swells, full from an emotion I have never experienced in all my life.
I lean forward to press a gentle kiss to his lips.
When I pull back, I trace his features, studying him.
“I know you told me a little about your past in your letters, but if you’re willing, I want to hear more about it.
I would like to know all of it, in all its many forms.”
His throat bobs. “Are you sure? It is not a happy story, Lyra, and if I were to tell you everything, there are parts which I think will be quite confusing for you to hear.”
“I’m sure,” I murmur. “I want to know all of your pieces, in all their light and shadows.”
“Alright,” he says, lacing his fingers through mine.
Draven then proceeds to tell me the entire composition of his many scars.
And he is right.
My world is not the same after.