Chapter 12 #2
“I was angry. I was scared. I was so many things, and none of them matter anymore. I am so, so sorry, Renza. I regret those words more than you will ever, ever know.” Idris’s words quake and his chest heaves as he shakes his head.
His fingers tighten over my body as his forehead drops against mine.
“I was terrified. I was angry. I was hurt. I was stupid and so … blindly, wretchedly wrong. You were right, we need a Maestrus and you have been better than Halice has any right to hope for. You have been the leader Halice needs. I am so, so sorry if you needed me in return and believed I wasn’t there. I have failed you.”
I stare at him, the fire clawing at my gaze, the blisters digging into my bones – all forgotten at the painful taunting of his wicked words. Words he can’t possibly mean.
“You hate me,” I say on a breath, loathing how ragged the whimpered words sound.
“No!” Idris insists, lifting his crushed, agonised eyes to mine.
“No, no, no. I’ve never hated you, Renza.
Not even as children. I couldn’t find it in me to hate you even when I thought I’d lost everything after Father sent me away.
I love you. I have loved you for so long, I barely know when it started. ”
I thrash against his grip, hating that he’s chosen now to say those words. Words I’ve craved. Words that are so brutal in the face of his inaction – his indifference.
“Liar! You liar!” Fresh tears spill from my scrunched eyes as I fail to hold back the pain of his words.
“I love you!”
“Once, perhaps. Once I might’ve been stupid enough to believe you.”
“It’s the truth! Believe it or not, Renza, and I know you love me too. You love me.”
“Please don’t remind me,” I sob, giving up my fight as I sag against the floor. “It hurts too much.”
“You don’t mean that.” Idris’s voice cracks and his eyes blaze. “I know you don’t.”
“You’ve barely spoken to me for weeks. You’ve done nothing for weeks!”
“Because you haven’t asked me to!” Idris insists, somehow tightening his impossibly strong grip. “I didn’t want to interfere with your plan.”
“What?” I exclaim.
“Your plan! I know you, Renza Di Maineri. You wouldn’t have taken the mantle of Maestrus without having a plan – a plan that doesn’t involve me because when you made it, you thought I was dead!” argues Idris fiercely.
The shock of his words wraps like cold steel around my tongue and my eyes widen in shock as he continues, his fingers tightening on me as though he could physically force me to understand him.
“I kept my distance, kept out of your way, watching and waiting. I’ve been waiting for you to ask me for something.
Anything! I’d have done anything you asked, fetched your water, given you the shirt off my back, the breath from my lungs – anything. But you never have.”
I shake my head. “You just stood in the corner.”
“I didn’t want our bond to distract you. I know how it can scramble the senses,” Idris admits, his nose almost brushing across the frozen tip of mine. “I didn’t want my presence to ruin your plan, but I was selfish and weak and couldn’t bear to stay away.”
“It doesn’t matter. The city doesn’t want me. They tried to kill me! Those people tried to murder me while shouting your name!”
“None of that was me!” Idris snaps, fury boiling in his voice. “Never, ever would I let anyone hurt you.”
“They want you! They demand you in my place, and they deserve that. The people deserve to have the leader they choose.” I shake my head – or try to against his iron grip.
“And what about the leader I choose? Don’t I deserve that?” Idris asks. “Because I want you. I choose you. Anyone who asks me knows, I support you. Now and always!”
“But never publicly—”
“You never asked me to! Speaking out publicly, without an order from my Maestrus, my commanding officer?” Idris growls with frustration, weeks and weeks of anguish rolled up in his words.
“I wanted to. I wanted to scream it from every corner of the city. But I couldn’t without compromising your orders or authority.
Do you have any idea the agony of seeing you every day, wanting to help but not knowing how.
Desperate for action but forced to hold back and wait for your plan.
Hoping every time you turned in my direction you would say something to me, give me a task.
Grant me a part of your trust, your time. ”
Sobs spasms through my body as Idris lowers his face to mine.
“I stayed away because I thought that’s what you wanted. What you needed. No matter how it hurt, how it tore me apart, I never complained. Because I thought that’s what you needed.” Idris’s fingers slide up to the sides of my head and knot in my hair.
“I need you. I have always needed you.” I whisper my lamenting answer through fresh, hot tears. “I thought you were punishing me.”
“No, Renza, never. Why didn’t you talk to me?” Idris almost begs me to answer him, his words haunted pleas. “All you had to do was ask.”
“I didn’t think I needed to. We never have before.”
Idris’s face creases with grief. He drops his forehead to mine as we lie on the marble. His skin sears into mine, hacking through the dark crevasses of my mind like a tidal wave of cruel fire.
“We shouldn’t be surprised that we’ve broken each other like this. We are fated to destroy each other, even love can’t stop that.” I say brokenly, “Fate always has the last laugh. We will be each other’s destruction.”
Idris breathes slowly. His heat surrounds me, his muscles firm against my body as I lie pressed between him and the cold marble floor.
“Distraction, devotion, destruction. I’ll take every part I can get,” swears Idris, like he’s making the most sacred oath.