Chapter 39
ACKER
She directs the beam of light from her hands into the waves cresting over her feet, turning the water from turquoise to liquid gold. The ripples bending and breaking on the surface send refracting shards of light back at Jovie, illuminating her in the same whirling glow.
She’s breathtaking as she walks into the ocean, letting her gift warm the water enough for her to swim, which she’s obviously missed deeply. I feel her joy through the Bond, the kind of happiness that aches a little.
The same kind I feel every time I look at her.
When she dives under an incoming wave and emerges on the other side, it’s like a miniature sun darting through the turbulent waters.
Concern has me rooted in place, watching avidly as she swims through the churning waves to reach calmer swells before turning onto her back with her arms outstretched at her sides.
But as she floats, I don’t need the Bond to reveal how her worries have eased as her body goes lax, cradled by the water. Still glowing like a sprite.
The iron in Fredrich’s blood signifies his presence to me before I hear his footsteps along the pathway behind me.
“I sent the staff away with bonus pay,” he says, coming to stand at my side.
“Enough for them to keep their mouths shut?” The last thing we need is one of the servants trying to curry favor with my father by exposing our presence here.
“Plenty,” he says. “Plus, I may have hinted that we know where their families live.”
“Good,” I tell him, my tone clearly a dismissal; I want to observe my Match in peace.
But when he doesn’t leave, I turn my head to look at him, sensing there’s more he wants to say.
His eyes are fixated on Jovie, and I have to quell the desire to demand he avert his eyes.
She’s not doing anything scandalous, but it’s such a private moment for her, and I don’t feel he deserves to witness it. Hell, I don’t believe I do either.
“That look on her face,” he says, voice somber. “When she heard the ocean … That was the same look she had when she heard of your arrival in Maile.”
If his intention was to wound me, it works. There’s a sharp, twisting pain in my gut as I process his words. The realization that she came to me on the wharf, hoping for the same comfort the ocean gives her, only to find disappointment and heartache instead.
“Ace, we don’t know what the future holds.” His gaze shifts to me, a sharpness in his eyes that I haven’t seen for many years, not since we were the last from our camp to survive the surprise attack by Roison. “And you’re wasting time.”
Wasting time doing what? But even as I ponder it, I already know.
We’ve yet to experience the worst of this war.
I need to return to the palace and handle my father.
Instead, I’m trying to score an alliance with a man I despise just to appease Jovie when I’d prefer to eliminate Kai from the entire situation.
He’d be one less unknown variable in an ever-shifting war. But Jovie …
I want her by my side.
And if this is the compromise I need to make to ensure she fights with me and not against me, then I’ll do it.
Fredrich heads back to the cottage and leaves with the warning hanging over my head, as I watch Jovie get reacquainted with something she used to resent. It’s almost as if the water is embracing her with open arms after all this time apart, having missed her, too.
I understand what it’s like to have despised something—or someone, rather—only to later recognize the error.
Time does funny things to one’s perspective.
The four years following Jovie’s betrayal have felt like a never-ending nightmare, but the sting of her betrayal is beginning to feel like a distant memory, as if simply being around Jovie again has lessened its potency.
I watch her for hours and its nearly nightfall when her light finally dims, magic spent.
She all but crawls out of the water and lays on the sand, the surf licking at her ankles for a long while more.
I know she’s freezing and tired, and I also know any attempt to help her up the cliffside steps would be met with hostility.
So, instead, I head back to the cottage to prepare one of the spare bedrooms and fill the porcelain tub overlooking the ocean, ready for her return.
It‘s another hour until she pushes through the gate leading to the back of the house. She follows the limestone path to the rear entrance of the cottage, soaking wet and shivering. She barely takes in the plush furniture and rugs once inside, venturing out of the parlor toward the butler’s quarters where I’m sitting at the base of the stairs watching her underneath the flickering sconces lining the wall of the stairwell.
I raise my bowl of soup. “The maidservants left a pot simmering on the stove before they went home.”
She eyes my bowl, the steam billowing up invitingly, but doesn’t move. “Poisoned?”
I smile despite her attempt at a joke falling flat, the deadened tone of her voice giving away just how exhausted she is. “You’re welcome to take a bowl to your room if you’d like.” I jerk my head in the direction of the stairs. “Bath is getting colder by the minute.”
Lifting a singular brow, she pins me in place with her eyes, as if to warn me against making any hasty movements as she trudges forward.
Her stomach rumbles loud enough for me to hear and I bite my lip in an effort to hide my smile.
She sees it anyway and, before I can even blink, snatches the bowl from my hands with more agility than I thought her capable of, stomping around me and up the stairs without another word.
I yell at her retreating back, “Second door on the right.”
Her harrumph sounds something like an acknowledgment, and then the slam of the door shutting behind her echoes down the stairs.
Leaning against the banister, I feel for the iron in the blood of Irina and Fredrich, each in their own respective rooms. Judging by the sharper pull of Fredrich’s, I’d say he’s at least a bottle deep into whatever liquor he swiped from my father’s bar.
But Irina’s is slow and steady as she lies unmoving, having gone to bed hours ago.
She didn’t have a lot to say after stopping me from immediately following Jovie when she ran for the cliff’s edge.
But once we were inside, a smile graced Irina’s face for the first time in a long time as she moved into the parlor at the back of the cottage where she observed Jovie swimming from the floor to ceilings windows overlooking the beach.
It takes some time before I feel Jovie’s blood slow its pace, exhaustion giving way to contentment as she drifts off to sleep. She’s been working herself to depletion, but her dreams are thankfully nonexistent. Her restlessness was keeping me up all night along with her.
I’m able to sense her more deeply than I ever have before.
Four years ago, her emotions were little more than a trickling stream down the tether.
Now, it’s as deep and steady as a river.
As if a dam broke at some point in the years we were apart and the current can’t be tamed any longer.
But instead of it crippling her, it’s somehow made her stronger.
The next few days continue in exactly the same way.
Having stolen one of my father’s swords from the mantle, Jovie spends her days down at the beach.
She runs through drills and repetitions before moving on to exercising her magic.
She uses it to warm the water around her as she swims, sometimes sending the flaming balls of light skimming over the water, into the cliffside, or straight into the air before releasing them into explosions of raining light.
Others she’ll direct into the sword, making the iron red hot as she works through her movements.
I like to pour a glass of dark liquor and take a seat in the parlor as the sun begins to set to watch the show.
The steel in her hand sings to me from all the way down at the beach.
I can practically feel the heat of her light through the metal, almost as if her magic is flowing through mine. It’s incredible to witness.
I tell her as much when she comes inside on the fourth night when she attempts to take the bowl of stew from my hand and pass me on the stairs like she’s done every night since we arrived at the cottage. But I don’t let her get away with it tonight, pulling the food out of her reach.
Her glare is a threat all of itself.
Instead, I place the bowl on the step behind me before calling the sword in her hand to mine, jerking the weapon from her grasp.
It’s warm to the touch. Almost too warm, the hilt stinging the skin of my palm as I rotate it.
“The last light wielder commanded each of the four main elements,” I say, placing the sword over the bend of my knee. “It seems you already favor metal.”
Jovie’s gaze flicks over me, the sword in my lap, before sweeping up the stairs leading to the bedrooms upstairs, obviously debating how much she’s willing to entertain me.
I don’t give her the option, impaling the sword at an angle into the tread of the stair beside me, blocking her ascent in the narrow stairwell.
Her expression is equal parts annoyance and exhaustion as she gives me her full attention, although begrudgingly. “What do you want, Acker?”
Standing, I move down a step, closing the last of the space separating us.
The new position makes her tilt her head back to maintain eye contact with me.
Her hair is plastered against the side of her neck, the dark strands escaping her braid are stark against her frigid skin.
Water drips from the tendrils, coasting over her pulse, and my mouth is suddenly very dry.
“Do you remember our first kiss?” I ask her.
She’s wary of my intentions, but nods. “Yes.”