Chapter 19
Sundown. A few hours. A few hours before they take him away from my door. From my bed. From the place where I learned safety could be a person. The hearing ends like all cruel things dressed as law do. Neatly, with parchment, with signatures, with guards pretending not to be weapons.
Valerius and I are allowed to leave together because proximity is still permitted. For now.
Seren is waiting outside. The second she sees my face, hers crumples. "No," she whispers.
I don't know what I look like. I only know Valerius's arm is still around me. I only know the bond feels bruised. I only know sundown has become a death sentence measured in light.
Seren rushes forward, but stops before touching me, as if she doesn't know where I hurt. "What happened?"
"They're separating us tonight," I say.
Her face goes white. Eli's cheerful mask disappears completely. Luc closes his eyes once, as if he expected it and still hates being right.
"Full separation?" Eli asks quietly.
"Monitored proximity," Valerius says, voice empty. "Separate rooms. Council observers."
Seren's eyes fill with fury. "They can't."
"They did," I whisper.
She looks at Valerius then, maybe expecting rage. What she sees makes her go silent because he isn't raging, it's worse. He's devastated so deeply he has become still around it.
The rest of the day passes like walking through water. Classes are suspended for us, officially due to council review exhaustion. Unofficially because everyone knows something happened. Valerius takes me to the old dueling gallery. No one stops him.
Seren comes for a while, then leaves when Professor Thorne sends for her to provide a witness statement. Eli and Luc stand guard outside the doors. Inside, black torches burn low. The mirrors reflect nothing strange today. Only us.
Valerius stands in the center of the room, facing away from me, hands braced on the back of an old bench. He has barely spoken since the chamber. The silence hurts.
I walk up behind him. "Are you angry at me?"
His head snaps up. He turns so fast the torches flicker. "No." The answer is immediate. Fierce.
"Then talk to me." I say softly. His jaw tightens. The bond trembles. "Valerius." He flinches at his name. I step closer. "Please."
That breaks something. He crosses the distance and pulls me into him so suddenly my breath catches.
His arms wrap around me, one at my back, one at my waist, holding me tightly enough that I feel every tremor he has been hiding.
His face presses into my hair. "I can't stop it," he says.
The words are ragged. My heart breaks. "I can't burn it. I can't threaten it. I can't stand in front of a council order and make it afraid of me without making them use it against you."
His grip tightens. "I can't stop them from taking me away from you tonight."
Tears fill my eyes. I wrap my arms around him. "You're not failing me."
His laugh is broken and awful. "It feels exactly like failing."
"It's not." I shake my head on his chest.
"I promised nothing would reach you." He says.
"They haven't taken me." I remind him.
"They are taking me." The words break on the last part. Not loudly, not weakly but enough.
Enough to make me realize the devastation is not only mine. He isn't afraid of sleeping alone. He is afraid of me sleeping without him. Afraid of shadows. Afraid of whispers. Afraid that when the dark comes, he will be trapped behind council wards, feeling my fear and unable to reach me.
The bond opens around the thought. I see it. Not fully, only a flash of his mind. Me in my bed. The shadow at my feet. Him on the other side of an unreachable door. His Shadowflame clawing at wards that won't break fast enough. The fear is so violent it steals my breath.
I pull back and take his face in my hands. "That won't happen."
"You don't know that." He looks at me in the eyes.
"No," I whisper. "I don't." His eyes close.
I kiss him. Not to silence him, not to prove anything because there are no words big enough for this kind of pain.
He freezes for one shattered heartbeat. Then kisses me back like something in him has been starving all day.
Not quiet, not gentle. This kiss is anger with teeth.
His hand buries in my hair. Mine clutch his shoulders.
The bond surges between us, gold and dark, hurting and healing in the same breath.
I taste salt and realize I am crying, or he is. Maybe both. I don't know.
He slows first. Somehow, he finds the strength. His forehead rests against mine. The air changes. The shadows deepen. The magic wakes. My pulse forgets how to behave.
"Valentina," he says.
Just my name but the way he says it makes something in me ache.
I look toward the windows. The sun is almost gone now.
Soon, we will be separated. Soon, there will be walls between us, rules between us, secrets pressing against my throat until I can barely breathe and suddenly, I can't stand it.
Not one more moment of pretending. Not one more careful breath. Not one more almost.
I close the space between us before fear can stop me and all his restraint breaks.
His hand catches my waist, firm and careful, as if he's afraid I might disappear.
His other hand slides to the side of my face, his thumb brushing my cheek with a gentleness that doesn't match the danger in him at all.
He kisses me back slowly, deeply. The bond flares between us, warm gold threading through the hollow spaces inside me, and I make a small sound against his mouth before I can stop it. Valerius pulls back just enough to breathe, his forehead nearly touching mine.
"We should stop," he whispers. His voice is rough. He doesn't move away. Making me feel every inch of excitement of his.
I should say yes, but my fingers curl into the front of his shirt. "I don't want to."
Something dark and beautiful passes through his eyes. "Neither do I."
This time he kisses me. The sun slips lower behind the glass, and the gallery dims around us.
The torches along the walls flicker awake one by one, black flames blooming with red edges, bending toward us as if the whole room can feel what is happening.
Valerius turns us until my back meets the cold stone between two mirrors.
His body shields mine from the rest of the world, and somehow that makes everything inside me loosen.
The fear. The shame. The endless loneliness I have carried for so long.
His mouth leaves mine only to press against my cheek, my jaw, the place just beneath my ear where my pulse betrays me completely.
I close my eyes. The bond glows brighter. "Valerius," I whisper.
He stops at once, doesn't pulls away fully, but stops. His breath touches my skin. His hands remain steady at my waist, warm through the dark fabric of my dress.
"Tell me," he says. "Tell me what you want."
My throat tightens because no one has ever asked me that.
No one ever asks what I want before deciding what I should be, what I should hide, what I should fear but he does.
This boy made of shadow and flame looks at me like my answer matters more than anything.
I touch his face, my fingers grazing the sharp line of his jaw, and for once, I don't let myself tremble.
"I want this," I whisper. "I want you."
His eyes close for one second, as if my words hurt him.
Then he leans in and kisses me like I have undone him.
The last of the sunlight fades from the windows.
The mirrors around us darken, but they don't show our reflections.
They show flickers of gold. Black flame.
Two shadows leaning into each other as if the world outside this gallery no longer exists.
Valerius lifts my hand and presses a kiss to my palm.
Then my wrist. Then the inside of my arm, each touch slow enough to make my breath catch.
The gallery feels warmer now or maybe it is only me.
Maybe it is the bond. Maybe it is the way his hands hold me like I am something precious and dangerous at the same time.
The doors at the far end of the gallery groan softly, preparing to lock for the night.
We both hear it. We both know what it means.
This is the moment we should pull apart. Instead, Valerius looks at me, waiting. Still giving me the choice. Still holding himself back even though I can feel how badly he wants to.
I take his hand. The bond answers like a flame being fed.
No words pass between us as he leads me deeper into the gallery, beyond the watching mirrors, beyond the black torches, into the part of the hall where the shadows gather thick enough to hide us from the world and when the doors finally close behind the dying sun, I don't feel afraid.
All I see is darkness and feel his touch. My breath catches. I feel his breath on my skin. My hands find his shirt and I pull it over his head, my hands gliding down his chest. His breath quickens. He turns me around roughly. Pressing himself against me, feeling the hardness of his length.
"Are you sure?" He whispers into my ear. Again he's giving me a choice. Even though I feel how badly he wants this through the bond.
Before I can even think I say. "Yes"
They can separate him from me but they will never be able to take this away from me.
Valerius must of felt my thought through the bond because in this exact moment he takes me without despair.
For once, the darkness doesn't swallow me.
It holds us. It keeps our secret and somewhere between his whispered promise and my fingers tangled with his, this sundown becomes something neither of us can take back.
I look at him putting his shirt back on in the reflection of the mirror as I'm fixing my hair. I see him stare at me. "What?" I say with my cheeks still flushed.
"You have to sleep tonight," he whispers.
A broken laugh escapes me. "Without you?"
"I'll be as close as they allow." He says.
"That isn't enough." I sigh, fighting back tears.
"I know." The words destroy me because he does know.
He takes my hand and guides me on him, laying my head on his chest. The bond knows. My body knows. Still, sundown is here. Cruel and golden through the gallery windows.