24. Chapter 24 #3
“And before that,” I continue, “you vowed back in the forest that you’d keep me out of the gods’ sight just to spite them.
You lied about that too!” Fueled by my frustration, I pull back my sleeve, revealing my achingly beautiful raven tattoo with its detailed feathers and its glossy beak.
“It seems you even conveniently left out the bit regarding my involvement in some world-ending prophecy. Oh, and the fact that the dragons have returned from the afterlife with a king who has chosen me as his twinflame. You had no right to keep any of that a secret from me, Augustine!”
“It was for your own good.” Augustine’s baritone voice slinks into something quiet and meek—a rarity.
He gently tugs my sleeve back down over my arm to conceal my raven spellmark, his eyes igniting in a way that indicates he’d like to set the entire universe on fire.
“I’ve kept you out of my sister’s sight by putting you in plain sight,” he says, as he finally wipes the tear away from my eye.
“She doesn’t attend parades for fun. She went to Windspire that day to find you.
And she would’ve succeeded, had I not intervened. ”
I think of the queen standing on the float the day we’d met, and my breath catches in my throat. She was there to find me?
“You can’t protect me from this, and you know it,” I whisper, my voice cracking.
“I can sure as hell try.”
I shoot a single syllable square between his eyes. “Why?”
“Because you’re my Dreamshade, Raven. You’re the drug that I need to survive.”
I think of Master Flint’s description of Dreamshade, and I crinkle my nose. “I don’t think that’s what Dreamshade is meant fo—”
“You hypnotize me,” he continues. In one sweeping motion, he grabs me by the wrists and proceeds to pull my body against his.
I submit to the fortitude of his chest and the warmth radiating from his skin.
He feels like a safe haven with his arms wrapped around me, regardless of how much I fucking hate him.
Wait. I hate him. I fucking detest him. So why does his body pressed up against mine feel so achingly familiar?
“Without you, the world fades to gray,” he continues, his lips pressed against the shell of my ear. “You could be a bottle of poison, and I’d still consume you to get high, just to taste you on my lips. It would be a marvelous way to die.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I whisper, my body tensing.
But his voice only drops down to a lower grumble that radiates all the way to my core.
“I don’t believe in prophecies either, you know.
” He grabs my chin with a sturdy hand, guiding my eyes up to meet his.
“However, regardless of how we both feel at the moment, that prophecy has made you a pawn in a game of gods’ chess, one that everyone wants for themselves.
From the moment we met, I knew I’d move Heaven and Hell to protect you from that. ”
My heart unwinds in catastrophic ribbons as he yanks open a nearby door with his free hand, revealing an ivory statue seated within the confines of a miniature shrine room.
No larger than a closet, the room bathes the statue in a buttery glow, bringing to life its hollowed-out eyes with wisps of incense and smoke.
“You asked me to fix her for you. So I did,” he says, dropping his hands at his side and taking a step back.
I stare at the somber statue—at all of her perfect edges and grooves, silently noting that not even a fissure was left behind in the aftermath of her ruin. She’s flawless. I touch her cheeks, her jowls, her eyes. I did it, Solara. I found the crazy old bat, just like you told me to.
I look up at him, my eyes brimming with something other than rage this time. “You warned me that summoning her would bring about the end of the world,” I recall. “Yet you fixed her for me anyway?”
“Yes,” he responds in solace.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He nods. Some claim that the gods have no heartbeat.
But I swear, I can feel the thumping of his pulse rising up to meet my hands as I take a step toward him again.
He stills as I graze his sternum with my fingertips, and he swallows as I trail my finger over the nape of his neck.
I continue reaching, stretching, coercing him to meet me halfway, until my lips are whispering against his and I’m saying, “Tell me, Dreamwalker… why does everything about you feel so damn familiar? Like I’m trapped in a memory of another time and place?
” My next touch causes him to loosen his breath, seemingly distracted by the coolness of it, and perhaps the thought of where it might go next.
For a man so devoid of color, somehow, he retains a glimmer of light.
It’s in the curvature of his smile and the soul behind his eyes, which are filled with life—almost like he’s bottling up nuclear energy inside.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he quietly replies, pulling himself away from me suddenly. He exits the room without so much as a goodbye, leaving me feeling like I’m the one filled with nuclear energy.