Chapter 99 Taera
Taera
The world comes to a stop. I don’t dare breathe as I look up, blinking back blindness, and take in Nikolai’s true face.
Shock ripples through me. Every line—every crease—is similar, but different. More subtle. He’s a stranger, and yet, he’s familiar. Like someone I’ve just met, but also always known, steeped in intimacy.
Nikolai holds his head stiffly, turned to one side, offering me a view of his profile, like he’s resisting pulling away entirely.
I study the right half of his face. His previously spun-gold hair, while still silky, has faded to the pale yellow of wheat.
His tense jawline is softer than before, less blockish, more delicate.
The green of his eyes appears only in small flecks within the hazel.
I swallow, wide-eyed, memorizing every detail.
His cheeks, once smooth as marble, are now dusted with a light smattering of freckles over slightly sun-darkened skin. Like my own. This is the kind of face I thought I would marry, the face of a simple, hard-working young man who Gramps would approve of.
My heart twinges from how simple it might have been.
He still won’t look at me, won’t meet my eyes. Tension ripples off his body as he holds himself rigidly in place.
“Nikolai.” I test his name. Even with the new face, it still fits.
“Well?” he whispers, barely audible. The skin of his clenched knuckles is white, the effort of his vulnerability laid bare. Compassion surges through me, a new tenderness unfurling.
We’re somewhere new—somewhere raw and open and clean, without a single illusion left between us. Slowly, I reach out my hand and cup his chin. Magic dances along my palm at the contact—the same rush I’ve always felt for him.
I let him feel it, my sense of wonder, my shy hope. And when our magics intertwine, I know he can feel every trembling emotion.
Nikolai stiffens, turning farther away.
My brows furrow. “What’s wrong?”
He lets out a shuddered exhale. He swallows, rotating to look directly at me—revealing the other side of his face.
I stop breathing.
The scar cuts from his left eyebrow down to the tense corner of his jaw—A scar all the way down his cheek. Hazel’s words.
“It was you,” I whisper. “You drained your sister.”