Chapter Fifty-Nine
Aftermath
A collective sigh rolls through the room as Varic locks the door.
We all pause until Drusilla’s footsteps recede far enough away before dropping our shoulders.
Lars moves to my bedside while Fray takes his place by the window, fiddling with the leather cord around his neck as he peers out into the moonlit garden.
Cirrin leans against the opposite side of the headboard, while Malin rests against the foot of the bed as he stares toward the door.
Gooseflesh rolls up my arms, and I glare at the stone walls of the castle, which only seem to amplify the brisk chill of the nighttime temperatures, explaining why the fireplace was lit in our absence.
The joints in my fingers ache from the frigid air as I prepare to climb into bed, uncertain as to how Varic has kept quiet this long, aside from the torrent of pain he must be enduring.
“Cirrin.” I wait for his gaze to rise from the page of his book before asking, “Will you please heal Varic?”
“No.” Varic’s voice is firm, and I release a breath when a familiar prickle of heat builds in the center of my chest.
He clears his throat, and I drop the covers when he runs his knuckles up and down the back of my arm. A shudder rolls through me with the motion catching and releasing the fabric of this useless see-through mesh robe.
“I need to speak with you.” Varic’s voice is thick, and I shiver when his breath casts down the curve of my neck. “Please.”
He looks at me with such aching need, I nod in assent as he grabs hold of my hand.
I lock eyes with him, and a jolt pierces my chest when I trace the hardened edges of his tormented expression.
That brilliance which so often shines from within him is dimmed, and his eyes dart around the room as if he’s a caged animal—looking for an escape like every time we enter confined spaces.
“If you stand by the fire, we can explain that Tasch is warming herself if anyone comes in,” Fray suggests.
Varic nods with the need to expel something, and he pulls me toward the crackling fire with an urgency reserved for something life-threatening.
The tightness in my throat threatens to steal my voice as his hand relaxes and allows mine to return to my side. It feels as if he has drifted away, even though he’s standing so close that the heat claiming my body is not from the fireplace alone.
My pulse pounds as I stare back at Varic, with the need for him to say something or else my veins may not hold against this onslaught of anticipation. Though if he doesn’t start speaking, I have some words of admonishment to share about what exactly occurred back there in the ballroom.
“I couldn’t look away.” He drops his gaze, and my heart squeezes with the need for him to come back to me. “Every part of me was screaming in agony.”
I open my mouth when he leans closer, distracting me with a shake of his head, seemingly in disagreement with the words he’s just spoken.
“I’m sorry. I’m acting like such a coward, making you stand here and listen to me complain when you’re the one who was forced to—” His voice breaks, and he pauses.
“Forced to dance with the Prince against your will.”
“No.” My tone is more forceful than I meant it, yet the spark behind his irises means I’m not wrong to show him my passion.
“Saying what scares you, naming what hurts you, is the very definition of bravery.” My hand seeks him, reaching, forgetting that we are no longer in a tent so isolated from the rest. Failing to remember the Emperor can burst in to find us like this.
His eyes cast down to my hand, hovering awkwardly in the space between our bodies, as I snatch it back to clasp with the other.
“It is brave to feel fear and anger and refuse to run from its source. And I think it is especially courageous to be so filled with longing and loss, yet maintain your promise. To be there for me—even when it hurts worse than any injury. To ensure I feel both safe and comfortable, simply from knowing you would never let anything happen.”
He stares back with so many emotions swirling behind his irises, showing me what my words have unleashed inside him. Then he lunges forward and closes the distance until his forehead nearly rests over my own, leaving nothing but a sliver of air between us.
“Do you have any idea how torturous it was to watch you be forced to dance with him?” His eyes dart around my features.
“Knowing that I could not cut in? That I am unable to ever ask for your hand, except when the Emperor commands? And even then, only for their entertainment. Never for your own enjoyment. Never because you have requested I be the one…” His voice breaks along with my heart, and I offer him all of my attention, needing him to know I hear him, I want him, pain and all.
“I do.” His face falls, and I continue, “Because I felt the same, helplessly watching as you needed to harm yourself. Knowing you were experiencing so much turmoil that you had to scar your own flesh. I couldn’t bear it.
” I drop my gaze to his hips and back, staring with intent until my magic thrums with the shame inside his chest, and I regret it, because he has nothing to be ashamed of.
It is not his fault he must maim himself to survive the cruelty of His Majesty.
He strokes featherlight stripes on the underside of my wrist. “I’m sorry,” he barely whispers.
“I was overcome.” His eyes lose focus, and my chest constricts because I know that look.
The one he wears when his mind has been lost to time again.
“I couldn’t control my magic enough to ward. I couldn’t risk what I did—”
The need to comfort him proves stronger than the grasp on my own hand as I press my finger to the center of his lips and pull whatever he has left of his focus.
With a subtle shake of my head, I communicate that we need to wait. To give time and space for this younger part of him—the one still encapsulated in memory—to recognize that time has passed and those soldiers have all been laid to rest.
I wait as long as he needs in remembrance of how his pain has been acknowledged, contained, and understood, as well as something so nebulous could be.
For the sorcerer he is today to remember it is okay to move forward and live.
For the moment when the light that is him—when that impossible brightness I hate to see dimmed—emits from behind the ever-shifting tones in his irises, in proof that he has come back to me.
That unexplained tether between us thrums, alerting me when his guilt finally fades, and the fear slinks away, down to the deepest recesses we created for this very purpose.
A new spark ignites behind his eyes, and his jaw flexes as I finally remember to drop my hand from his lips. I suck in a greedy breath filled with his warm spice scent, enveloping me like the heat from his body.
“Do you have any idea what sort of torment it is to have to watch another sorcerer touch you? To have to stand still and trace the way he places his hands all over your body?” His eyes study me while a renewed sense of heat flares beneath my cheeks.
“Do you have any way of imagining what it felt like to witness another sorcerer be granted the freedom to hold you? To have to do nothing while he placed his hands all over your form without ever asking what you preferred, or how you felt about it?” His gaze lowers, scorching a line down the center of my chest.
“Do you have any idea how difficult it was, knowing I could not say a word while I painstakingly studied his every movement, ensuring he did not hurt you or take advantage of you in any way that would warrant me a reason to intervene? Hoping that he would be respectful, yet watching as he grabbed you, moved you, and caressed your skin without your consent?” His voice cracks over the last few words.
“To track every placement of his fingers while he groped you. Painting stripes of envy over your hips.” His eyes drop as I swallow, wishing he would show me where he means.
“And jealousy in the small of your waist.” His tongue darts out and licks his lower lip as he stares down the narrow space between us.
“And rage over the curve of your lower back.” Flames flicker behind his eyes, reminding me of that roiling inferno which burnt so brightly the night he admonished Drusilla for her cruel treatment.
“Do you know what it took for me to remain in place and keep from blasting my magic at the Prince to tear him off you? How difficult it was to keep from storming across the floor and ripping him away when he pressed his hips into yours? Or when he pulled you so close the front of your body became flush with his own?” His chest heaves with his next breath.
“Do you have any idea how hard it was to watch as he firmly molded himself around every curve?” His eyes trace over all that he can see of me as I shake my head, eyes widening as he seems to interpret the motion as an invitation to further explain his meaning.
“It is the hardest thing I have ever had to do,” he rasps, turning away to rake his fingers through his hair.
“It has been nothing but torture to stand by and watch as others place their hands all over you, knowing I am powerless to say a thing because of how much danger I would put you in were I to stalk over and claim you as I ache to do.” His fist clenches between us, held so close his knuckles brush the tie of my robe.
“That I can’t take you by the hand and claim you.
” His eyes lock on mine with an intensity I’ve never seen from him.
“To make sure everyone, in every corner of the Continent, knows that they cannot have you. That they cannot touch you or use you however they see fit. Because you are mine, and I will not allow it.”