Chapter 54 #2
“Stop trying to save me, Emmeline,” he whispered against her hair. “I’ve been dying slowly every day since I killed my father. Quicker since Nico. Stop taking these moments that we could be together. Let us enjoy them while we have them.”
She squeezed her eyes tight.
“I can’t do that,” Emmeline argued into his chest, voice wavering.
“Why?”
“Because.” The words caught in her throat, retreating in on themselves.
But Roremar was tired, she could feel it in his tense muscles. Rocarri’s revelation had shattered his patience. Shattered hers, too, if she was honest.
Roremar gripped Emmeline’s waist, her attention snapping up as he walked her backward, silver eyes piercing. “Why can’t you stop trying to save me?”
The cold jolt of a damp tree trunk at her back shocked the words from her.
“Because you saved me.” Her fingers tightened in his tunic, words growing frantic.
“You saved me, Roremar. Again and again on Lyra. Not only physically, but you brought me back from an edge of loneliness I was willingly teetering over. I thought it was the only way to live—the best way to live—but you showed me so much more. You said I showed you how to breathe again, but you, Reckless? You showed me how to love. And that is more than I could ever ask for.”
He argued, “And you don’t think I love you?”
Emmeline froze.
“I love you, Emmeline, and that’s why this is so fucking impossible!”
“No.” She shook her head, though she knew it was futile. “You don’t. You can’t.”
“Yes,” he challenged, a dark laugh falling off his lips.
“I love you because you’re stubborn, and I love you because you’re so fucking clever.
I love you because you have the biggest heart even though the Fates have shown you the most pain.
Because you still seek good in the realms, believe it’s within everyone even when they’ve given you no reason to.
Because you’re blessed by the Fates but you stand up to them.
Because you’re strong and don’t let anyone in, but for some reason you let me in and trusted me enough to know I’d keep you safe.
“I love you because you love my family and understand my devotion to them, because you have an obsession with old folktales and you talk to the stars when you’re feeling more than you know what to do with, and you keep your mother alive through that.
Because you’re so precise, you hate when star maps are off even a fraction and the way you get lost in the pages.
I love how dedicated you are to your students, how happy you get for their success and how protective you are of them, and how you know every variation of incense I’ve never fucking heard of.
And dammit, I even love how secretive you are because I love figuring you out! ”
His laugh was rough as he shook his head, and a matching one almost bubbled out of Emmeline, but she kept it in, lips trembling.
“I love you because you fight for me when I won’t, but you also fight with me and challenge me.
And fucking Fates, I love you for being the only person to figure out my Fate tie and setting me free in a way I never thought I’d get.
I love you for more reasons than there are stars in the sky, and that is why I can’t fucking stand anything that’s going on right now, but especially not you being manipulated. ”
He loved her.
She’d felt it in every look, every touch, and every secret. She’d known it long before she’d ever dared think it. They were two souls destined to twine together in a way she was too scared to name.
One day, when I meet them, I’ll tell the stars about you, she’d promised him once.
And as she was on the verge of sleep, his response reached out to her, a vow wrapped around her heart. My Em…I’ll write our story in the galaxies.
She’d known it, and yet hearing him confess all the reasons he was so certain…it wrecked her.
It pulled open every wound she’d worked to close and laid her bare. The scars were vulnerable, one touch would be agony. And she was terrified of losing anything else.
He loved her, but maybe he didn’t know the full truth. Maybe he hadn’t figured it out as she had weeks ago. She hoped to the Fates he hadn’t. She promised she would let him go, and it would make it so much harder to say goodbye if he knew what they truly were.
She opened her mouth, but words didn’t come. After a moment of floundering, she murmured, “I can’t keep you.”
“I know you’re scared,” Roremar said, brushing his knuckles across her cheek. “I don’t need you to tell me you feel the same—you can tell it to the stars—but you can’t be on some mission to save me in order to repay me. That’s not how love works.”
“I’m not repaying you!” Emmeline rushed out.
“I need you. I can’t—I can’t let anything happen to you.
” Even the thought had her cracking in half, a split right down the center of her chest where a part of him had embedded itself so deeply.
“If I behave and fall in line, then they won’t hurt you, and that’s a sacrifice I’ll gladly make. ”
“I’m hurting every day despite this tournament. In my grief, in my longing. And most likely in the physical aspect, too—”
“But that’s the one I can stop. Or…or I can try to.” Her nails curled into the thin tunic he’d been given in his cell. “Please, let me try.”
“Not if it means being manipulated or sold off to the victor.”
“It won’t come to that. I promise it won’t.” She’d do whatever she had to. Emmeline had given everything up for Roremar, had exposed every one of her secrets to try to save him. She wouldn’t stop now.
Roremar mulled over those words, searching her expression.
His confession burned in the air between them, the new tune her heart beat to.
I love you because…
I love you because…
I love you because…
“Promise me one thing,” Roremar said.
“What?”
“Give me tonight. When we’re out here, invisible in the jungle, drop that fucking wall you keep disappearing behind.” His forehead pressed to hers, the touch screaming through her.
I love you because…
Roremar pleaded, “Stop pushing me away. Stop running.”
The words left her exposed, calling out her vulnerabilities and crutches, but Roremar was honest with her. And after all the hurt he’d experienced, he deserved whatever drops of happiness they could squeeze from life.
They were alone out here. On a mission from the Fates, and something about that made it feel so right to give in.
To be free with him.
“Tonight,” she swore.
Roremar’s relief visibly loosened his frame. He kissed her forehead, then laced their fingers together. Those three words beat through every step through the jungle, trailed on the rumbling waterfalls as they emerged on a cliff beneath a star-speckled sky.
All twelve of the Fates’ major constellations winked down at them conspiratorially, and Emmeline couldn’t help but wonder why they led them here. A spark of excitement ignited in her gut. She pulled Roremar closer to the falls.
“Wow,” she breathed.