Chapter 27 #3
The realization destroyed me: she was hiding herself.
She’d done the same from the others, masking herself in oversized clothes while she recovered from the island’s effects, but even in our earliest days, when the line between enemies and something else had been razor-thin, she’d never hidden her body from me.
Fury rose in a blazing rush. She was the one who taught me to embrace my scars. Did she really think there was any form her body could take that I would not love?
My jaw clenched hard, though I forced my expression to stay calm. I set the sweater down. “I’ll get you something else to wear.”
I walked to a trunk and began to rifle through its contents.
While she’d been in Ignios, I’d stocked her tent with as many comforts as I thought she’d accept.
A trove of warm, practical clothing. A plain wool rug to combat the frigid soil.
A small pile of books that I knew made her laugh, though she’d yet to touch them. And weapons. So many weapons.
I gathered an armful of soft pieces fit for sleeping, then halted in my tracks. Diem had risen to her feet. She was wearing my sweater, its hem grazing her upper thigh.
As I came closer, she toyed with the ends of the sleeves and avoided my eyes. The movement gave me hope. If she was nervous, at least she was feeling. I did not fear Diem’s sorrow or her rage, but the Diem who felt nothing scared me more than anything I’d ever known.
I offered the clothes, and she took them. This time, she made no effort to hide as she slipped on undergarments and a pair of warm stockings, though she declined to trade my sweater for a thicker one I’d brought her.
I set it aside. “Gather up your hair.”
Doubt flitted over her face until she watched me withdraw her golden pendant from my pocket. She quickly swept her long waves in a pile on her head.
I circled behind her and reached over her shoulders to drape the thin chain around her neck.
Her skin pebbled as my fingers slowly and deliberately brushed the column of her throat.
I leaned in and breathed her in, savoring her unique floral scent.
Prior to Diem’s arrival in my life, I’d encountered that fragrance only once before, on what had been the happiest day of my life—until one moment in a Sophos library forever replaced it.
I took the hair from her hands and gently combed my fingers through her curls, then wove them into a loose braid, grateful that Lily had insisted on teaching me the skill when she was young.
My fingers trailed down her shoulder. “Shall I get you food?” I craned my head around. “Warm cocoa?”
I did not get the laugh I’d hoped for. Her throat worked, and she shook her head.
Blessed Kindred, I wanted to pull her close. She was so near I could feel her heat, yet out of reach in all the ways that mattered.
“Do you remember what you said to me in Umbros, just before you discovered I’d been wounded?” I asked. “It was something your father told you: ‘You don’t have to see all of someone to love all of them.’ I may not see everything you’re going through, but I love you, Diem Bellator. All of you.”
As her eyes fell closed, a single tear broke free and trailed down her cheek. I kissed it away, then scooped her up into my arms and carried her to her bedroll. Once she was tightly tucked inside a cove of cushions and blankets, I knelt at her side.
“Tell me to stay.”
A request. A demand. A desperate disciple’s prayer.
“Nothing has to happen,” I said. “Just let me stay here and hold you until you fall asleep.”
The war played out on the battlefield of her face: the cavalry of her stubborn resolve clashing with lonely arrows, all while bleeding from the explosive artillery of desire. There was not a second where I could tell which side was winning, only that casualties were mounting all around.
Her eyes fell guiltily away, her mouth closed tight.
The darker, possessive side of me gripped tighter to its sword, unwilling to accept defeat. It would be so easy, such a gods-damned relief, to hammer through her walls uninvited and force her to relent.
I would win, if I did. Perhaps not on a day when she was her fiery, strong-willed self, but the woman before me was down to the last weary soldier of her will to fight.
But I had sworn to go to war for her. Not against her.
So I took her hand, and I curled her fingers around the pendant I’d just clasped at her neck.
My godhood called out to the spark of magic I’d infused in the phoenix’s ruby heart with an order to keep her warm.
I had no idea if it would work, but when her eyelids heavied and her muscles relaxed, my spirit eased.
Against all my instincts, I finally rose to leave. The flap was almost closed behind me when I heard her speak again.
“Luther?”
I dipped my head inside, vibrating with hope. “Yes, my heart?”
Silence.
For so long, only silence.
“Thank you.”
They weren’t the words I’d hoped for.
But it was enough.
I raised my hand, and a burst of magic scattered over the canvas roof in a field of blue pinpricks that resembled the twinkling midnight sky—and in the corner, courtesy of my illusions, a crescent moon.
“Sleep well,” I said. “Better days will come, I promise.”
I prayed it was a promise I could keep.