Chapter Thirty One #2
“I’m sorry, Mila,” he whispered, hoarse. “I’m sorry I can’t take this pain away. I’m sorry that I can’t stop this process.”
She chuckled, a light thing.
“Are we feeling sorry for the same thing? Wasting time with apologies when it won’t matter? We’re going to save you, Pedr. And ourselves,” she added quietly.
He couldn’t fathom letting her go into any of Onskar’s Halls without him. Couldn’t imagine a scenario in which he could tolerate her walking away. Also, couldn’t conjure a situation in which he could stop her.
He pressed his lips against her hair, wishing the morning didn’t creep up so quickly. Until the tears misted his eyes, he didn’t know himself capable of true sorrow anymore. Tears had not risen through his waves of anger anytime in the last fifteen years.
He blinked them away.
“Pedr?”
“Hmm?”
“Tell me what happened? During the last fifteen years, I mean,” she hastily added. She curled a blanket around her bare shoulders, protecting her from the gentle breeze. He enjoyed the whisper of it across his naked skin as he turned onto his side, holding her in the circle of his arms.
“There isn’t much to tell, really.”
“Nothing?”
“I spent fifteen years trying to find a way into the Westlands.”
“There had to be more!”
“Not really.”
Blinking, she asked, “I was your sole focus for fifteen years?”
“I did other things, of course, while thinking of new approaches. Stole as many arcane artifacts as I could find, earned my reputation as a pirate because of it, and sailed the seas with burning sails. But it was all to find you. I attempted to use the arcane gadgets as I breached the Westlands, or add speed, or work around the curse that kept me on the boat.”
She contemplated that, taking it in and all the vast meaning it held, before asking, “But . . . always? You never did anything else?”
He shrugged. “I had to return to Kapurnick every now and then, of course. To see?—”
“Britt and Malcolm.”
“Yes.”
A smile wreathed her face. “I finally met a dragul! Denerfen was as wonderful as you once described the draguls being. I can’t wait to meet more of them.”
“If Britt can save them,” he said with a wry frown. “Their population has been hit hard the past century, and they may be dying out.”
“No!”
“Jordaire told her about a plant, kattmynta, that should help, and she was able to secure some. Anyway, while trying to get to you, there was traveling that I had to do. I scouted all of the Westland borders, sought for answers in the citadels up north, searched for arcane objects that might help me. At most, I was gone for a month, maybe two. But I always returned to the Westlands.”
Her finger trailed a design on his chest, but she stared out the window, lost in thought. Mila still expressed everything through her eyes, and he watched them shift and rove in fascination.
He nudged her, tired of talking about himself.
“And you?”
“I suppose I have much less to report.”
“You didn’t have the benefit of freedom, changing experiences, and the sea. I think you suffered far more than myself.”
“Einar said something similar, but . . . no,” she finally murmured, sinking against the pillow. “Nothing happened.”
“You were in one room?”
“Yes.”
“Never left?”
Quietly, she said, “No. Which doesn’t make it better or worse, really. Just . . . different.”
Pedr fought not to roll his eyes. He would very much beg to differ. Instead, he asked, “How did you endure it?”
“The same as you? Constant distraction. Attempts to escape. Endlessly trying to convince Stulla to let me out. I spent a lot of time trying to use arcane, doing puzzles, reading books, writing everything down and hiding it so Stinna didn’t find our story.”
He couldn’t help his smile.
“Rebellious daughter.”
She huffed a laugh, and sadness filled it. “Not an effective rebellious daughter,” she murmured, “or I would have made my way to you sooner.” She caressed his neck. “Do I look any different?”
“No.”
“You don’t either.”
“Except more handsome?”
Mila laughed outright. “Impossible. You were already too handsome.”
He growled and buried his face in her neck when a flash of lightheadedness swept him. Shite, but he was weak. Breathing deep, he immersed himself in her arms. The feel of her hands in his hair, the fingers rubbing along his scalp. It grounded him, kept him from slipping away too soon.
He’d never forget. And if these were to be the last days of his life, there was nothing else he wanted to do with them. He pressed a tender kiss to lips he had abused with near-violent intent minutes ago.
She whispered against his.
“I missed you, Pedr.”
“I missed you.”
“I’m afraid.”
His whisper was so quiet he almost didn’t hear it himself. “Of what?”
Mila closed her wet lashes. “Failing you. Do you think I can do this?”
The gentle note of pleading in her voice tugged at his once-stony heart. An urge to lash out, to demand she shouldn’t do this, took him by surprise. Despite his heady desire to remove all struggle from her life, plant her in his arms, and never release her, there was reality to consider.
Mila needed courage. She had courage—she’d just forgotten it. And he’d be a bastid if he spent the last fifteen years fighting for her just to lose her now. If helping her remember her powerful self was the only way to empower her, he’d say every word that needed to be said.
“Do you remember the first time we met?”
A laugh flowed out of her, every bit as intoxicating as her smile, her quick wit. The way she looked at him with such light and affection had his heart in knots.
“How could I forget?”
He twirled a finger around her skin, just over her heart.
“You were so na?ve.”
Digging an elbow into his ribs, she cried, “No need to expound on it! Draven emphasized it enough, thank you.”
He yelped and laughed, attempting to dodge her tickling hand. The sudden movement sent black twirling through his mind, but he fought it. She threatened him with a stony, teasing look that trapped him all the more deeply in her webs.
Sobering, she asked, “What about my na?veté?”
Pedr brought their foreheads together.
“But you were so strong. Venturing into the world, determined to see the good in everything.”
Tears welled up in her eyes.
“It’s a weakness.”
“It’s not.” His hand wrapped her neck. He closed his eyes, dizzy with her smell.
“You already know you can do this, Mila, as you know both sides of life: freedom and captivity. Siren and wyvern. Love and heartache. You gave yourself freedom, exposed yourself to the world, to love, to heartache. You fought to find me, to bring me here, and now you’ll continue to fight. I trust you.”
He opened his eyes to stare at her. Droplets brimmed over her lashes, visible through the direct sunshine that warmed the next day, the next nightmare. A distant part of him that still had arcane recognized something ahead. A different smell? A warning in the wind?
“I don’t deserve your belief, Pedr,” she whispered. “You see something in me that no one else does. What if you’re wrong? What if you’re biased?”
He placed a hand under her jaw and pressed a kiss to her nose. “I’m the one who sees the most clearly, Mila. You don’t know your own strengths, not like I know the extent of them. On this, you’ll have to trust the rest of us. You have what it takes.”
“Will you keep saying it?”
“Forever.”
Mila kissed him again, and his ever-present hunger for her touch reared its head. He wrapped her in his arms as the sun broke the horizon, and swept back into her with a kiss, a touch.
They finally broke apart when Einar banged his way up the stairs to the bow, and Draven flapped his wings on approach from somewhere out to sea.
Pedr forced himself to impart only one last touch.
Mila sent him a saucy look over her blanket-wrapped body and reached for her clothes as he combated the rising exhaustion.
He didn’t have much longer before unconsciousness swept him away, and he’d make the most of every minute.
By speaking with Himmel.