Chapter Seventy-Three #2
My throat constricts, and tears spring forth while his fingertips dance along my skin, tracing a line across my forehead and back again. He twirls one of my curls around his finger, where he holds it for a moment before letting it bounce back as a heavy sigh rends from him.
My palms tingle with the need to reach out. To open my mouth and tell him every word bubbling up from the depths—those which have even been hidden from me until this moment.
I startle when his hand curves to fit over my own, where he squeezes four pulses—a transference of energy. A message of sorts, conveying what he needs me to receive without having to speak it.
He lingers while I focus on my breathing, refusing to pretend all of that time only to be found out now, as I maintain a rhythm I hope is believable.
The creaking of the bedframe jars my nerves as he shifts to rise from the mattress.
My chest tightens with this being the last moment we will ever share this sleeping surface. The space where two helpless, hopeless, and terrified beings helped to discover each other’s broken pieces and shattered remnants, while refusing to let the other break any further.
The space where we were remade through our bond and the strength of our connection. Having never known anyone the way I know him. Learning more about myself when he reflected all those hard-to-reach places I wasn’t capable of witnessing alone.
The soles of his boots scrape over the canvas floor, then come to a halt.
“May I keep that?” he whispers, and my throat constricts as I fight against the urge to open my eyes to know what he seems to be requesting, and from whom—to the point it nearly breaks me.
Tears flow freely despite clenching my eyes shut. Because of course there is no power strong enough to staunch the sadness seeping from me now that he’s leaving.
Paper rips and then crinkles, just before Varic’s footsteps carry him farther away.
The canvas door folds open, allowing a beam of light to cross my form when he says, “I promise to do everything in my power to take care of you, mei meida.”
My stomach clenches as I hold in a sob as his footsteps fade and the canvas ripples shut behind him.
I curl up into a ball and smell his scent over the pillow, which rips out the sob I tried so hard to swallow, shaking and trembling with the pain in my chest, feeling as if a part of my heart has been torn off in his absence.
The memory shifts to the first time I saw him after that moment—
His Imperial Highness failed to mention that Varic would be attending dinner.
My heart skips a beat at the sight of him. And even though it has been a handful of months since he left, it somehow feels as if no amount of time has passed. As if it is the same day he pressed those four pulses into my skin and left me with that mysterious message.
His eyes find mine across the dining hall, and my breath hitches. Because in one fleeting moment we are able to convey all we had left unspoken. Sharing every emotion we had to suppress. Though we shouldn’t.
I drop my gaze to trace the gold embroidery running the length of the table. Though I cannot ignore him much longer. Not with the heat of his gaze licking my skin, like the embers of a blaze left unattended.
So I return my attention to him and promptly slam my eyes closed, imprinting the small smile he held for me into my mind, like a painting I can never be rid of.
For the emotion he expressed is one I cannot accept.
Because if what I perceive is true, it cannot be. We can never be.
Whatever it is he may want with me, it is a simple fact—an impossibility.
‘Forbidden’, they say. And the Emperor means it. Having borne witness to what befalls those who have tried to get close to me, and it is nothing I would ever condone for Varic.
No. He deserves much better. If only his role allowed for it.
I swallow against the tension and avoid his gaze—until the Emperor commands it.
“My little witch.” His Majesty’s smile pulls on the thin skin of his cheeks. “Just look at how well Sergeant Varic is faring after all you two accomplished together.” His tone insinuates something I refuse to decipher.
Though I do as he bids. I look at the flames flickering behind Varic’s eyes, while he unabashedly stares back at me.
“What is that?” the Emperor asks, pointing to the lacy flush creeping up from the center of my chest.
I open my mouth to stammer something when Cirrin thankfully intervenes, “Just the wine, Your Majesty. It seems to bring a flush to her skin, at times.”
“Hmm.” Emperor Aldritch narrows his eyes over the redness.
Cirrin sends me the cool touch of his healing and tries to subdue the Sergeant’s effect over me, which does nothing as said sorcerer fails to hide his self-satisfied smirk.
Yet I bow to the Emperor as he stalks away, gesturing for Varic to follow after him.
Though the distance his compliance creates between us does nothing to staunch the heat flaring underneath my skin every time Varic’s gaze finds and locks on my own, softening his expression until it’s almost pleading.
Breaking my heart a little more every time it happens, shifting something within my chest, feeling just like it did the last time he left the tent.
A deep amber hue dances within my ribcage, swirling around my heart as the flush only deepens—making Varic’s effect on me even more obvious.
I cannot do this. I cannot tolerate even one event, much less many more meetings like this. Now all I can hope is that Varic will be transferred to one of the furthest bases, where he would rarely be required to travel to the Palace.
His eyes cast over from where he stands twenty paces or so away.
Minimally conversing as he flits his gaze back to my own while I try to pretend this palpable connection does not exist between us.
My heart lurches with the torment of keeping this secret.
A sense of torture which will only increase the more often we are made to share the same space.