Chapter Fifty-One #3
“What is that?” I storm toward him and gesture at the necklace while his smile rises in response. “How long have you had this? And why haven’t I seen it?”
His stomach clenches above the towel slung low around his hips as he laughs. “Which question would you prefer I answer first?”
I lift my chin in challenge. “How about you go in order?”
His eyes flash with mischief as he closes the distance, until the threads from the knot of his towel brush against the fabric of my dress.
“Take a guess as to what it is.” He juts his own chin to mimic my action.
I reach for the woven fiber, feeling just as uncertain until a familiar scent seems to emanate from it.
I lift the end of the cord closer and smell the faint impression of the deep floral we’ve determined is too unique to come from anything he could have obtained outside of this fabric having been something belonging to me.
“Now, have you determined its origin?”
I shake my head, hoping he’ll tell me.
“It is silk from a nightgown you left behind the day you returned to the Imperial Palace.” His eyes never leave mine, yet my vision grows hazy with tears. “I hid it within my uniform during the day to prevent it from being confiscated. Then I would sleep with it over my pillow at night.”
My chest no longer rises, and I am not entirely sure I am breathing.
“I needed it to help coax me to sleep when the worst of the memories haunted me. It helped to trick my mind into believing you were still there, so I could drift off with the safety I felt in your presence.”
Tears roll down to my chest where they seep inside the fabric of my dress.
“That’s beautiful, Varic.” I swipe more tears away, and he stops me, holding my wrist so I can feel without hiding. A sob makes its way past my lips. “And rather tragic.”
His expression lifts in amusement. “Eventually, I feared something might happen to it, so I asked a seamstress if she would help me make strips of the silk into something lasting. Then, when she mentioned the ends of the cord would eventually fray over time, I knew what to use as a cap to protect it.”
“Where did you get the gold to craft these?” I twirl one of the talons between my finger and thumb, expecting it to be something he considers special, or else he would never allow it to touch anything I had worn. “Knowing you, it has to be meaningful.”
The tips of his ears burn brighter with my slip of the tongue. “Jase used to wear a ring, which his parents insisted I take as a token of their forgiveness—”
I flatten my palm over his collarbone to let him know I am here and I know.
“The first time I was invited to the Palace, I asked the Imperial jeweler if he could fashion the ring into two talons.”
“Signifying?”
“Why do you assume their shape symbolizes anything?”
“Because it’s you, Varic. Everything has meaning.”
His mouth curves in the corner, tugging my own. “Like the Dragons on my back, the talons signify freedom, strength, fight, and life.”
His words settle in, embedding themselves into my marrow, each bringing more meaning than anyone else could guess, because Varic infuses them with so much more than their definition.
“Why two? Wouldn’t it be easier to wear if you connected the ends?”
“Two things can be separated, yet still belong together, Tasch.”
A storm brews behind his irises, containing and communicating multitudes.
I drop my gaze to where the delicately woven silk slips between my fingertips, reveling in the way our combined scent lingers on my skin when I pull away from him.
“You created this to keep a piece of us close.”
He nods and places his wide palm over the back of my hand as he pulls it to rest over the base of his neck before pressing in. “Right here. Right at my pulse point. The place where you would nuzzle up against me in your sleep.”
“You are the most sentimental being.” I flex my fingers for emphasis.
“Guilty.”
“How long have you worn this?” My voice betrays me, breaking before I finish the question.
“Since I picked it up from the Imperial jeweler after the first meeting His Majesty required I attend at the Palace. After we had been—”
“Separated.”
He nods before tipping his head to look up at me through his lashes.
I pull in a deep breath as it becomes more and more difficult to maintain our eye contact. “Meaning you have worn this every time I have seen you since.”
“Every moment I wasn’t bathing. Or the night you used my chest as a pillow in your sleep.”
“My sleep? Were you not also sleeping?”
His shoulder rises in dismissal. “I might have savored the moment before I drifted off again.”
We stand, staring at one another over the pebbled shore, breathing each other in as he waits for me to rewrite what I knew of our history, replacing old assumptions with the knowledge that Varic has carried this token of our time together. Every day. For years.
He looks at me with an expression confirming everything I could ever question.
More than words, or this sentimental history with a strip of my clothing.
Because he’s looking at me as if I am the most valuable thing in the world to him.
And he would do anything to ensure my safety.