The Siakar
The next night, I told Colsar all I had been able to learn about the amulet and Dali and Teorin and everything else happening in Darkway Palace.
“There is something else,” I said slowly. “But I do not want you to be upset with me.”
He frowned. “What is it?”
“The other night, I made Eravic take me to Thrykis.” I told him how I had killed Fyris and left Avaneer to take the blame, how I had seen Master Forsamin and met his brother, who had been the one making my foul-tasting treatments this entire time.
I drew in a deep breath. “I did not tell you right away because I was worried you would be upset at me for taking the risk, and I do not want there to be tension between us. Not now.”
“I need to tell you something else about the Arrolyn.”
His expression changed immediately. “What about it?”
“Eravic can activate it.”
He went still.
“It is not as simple as gaining power,” I said. “There are risks.”
“What kind of risks?”
I looked down at my hands.
“The activation takes three days. And during those three days, I may not be entirely myself.”
His face tightened.
“The Arrolyn was created by Toritha, but the magic used to create it was Sarenal magic. It was meant for Saren bloodlines. The part of me it is connected to comes from Sarenal, but I do not have Sarenal blood. Eravic does not know exactly what will happen when it wakes.”
“Meaning?”
I swallowed.
“Meaning it could bring things forward that already exist beneath the surface. Feelings. Attachments. Things I do not know are there.”
He was quiet.
“Say what you mean, Asharin.”
I forced myself to meet his eyes.
“It could be feelings for Eravic.”
The silence was immediate.
“It could be something that was never there before. It could be something that was there and I did not recognize it. I do not know. It could instead be hatred for him, or for myself. And I could bring that hatred back into our world. Our life.”
I paused. “It is a risk.”
His jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
“The process is intimate,” I added. “The magic does not understand vows or promises or what is right. It does not understand that I have a husband. That I have children. That I have a life waiting for me.”
I took a breath.
“It only knows what it was created to do.”
“And what happens during those three days?”
“I do not know.”
That was the part I hated admitting.
“I may not remember everything. I may come out of it not knowing what was real and what was caused by the magic. I may feel something for him that feels completely real. I may act on something I would never choose outside of that process.”
His eyes searched mine.
“And afterward?”
I looked away.
“I do not know if I will feel exactly the same. Eravic has said that it is not guaranteed. That strange things can happen because it is such an unnatural awakening and because Sarenal magic is so…dark.”
The words hurt more than I expected.
“But I need you to understand something. I am not choosing this because of him. I am choosing this because I am…slowly dying here. Because I do not know how long the vials will keep working. Because I do not know if I will ever get another chance to return to you and our children.”
A cough caught in my chest before I could finish. I turned away, but not quickly enough. He saw the blood.
His expression changed.
“The poison is getting worse,” I said quietly. “The treatments help, but they are not enough.”
My fingers shook as I wiped my mouth.
“I cannot sit here and wait until I am too weak to do anything.”
He reached for my hand.
“You thought I would be angry.”
“Yes.”
“I am scared,” he admitted.
I looked at him.
“But not because I do not trust you.”
I waited for him to tell me I should not do this. That it was too dangerous. That I should find another way.
He did not. Instead he lifted my chin.
"I love you.”
Everything in me stopped.
"Every time you look at me like that I can barely breathe," I said.
He kissed me in a way that made me not want him to leave my mouth.
"I thought you would be angry with me," I said, my brow touching his.
"I would never be angry with you," he said. "Worried and protective, yes. But not angry."
We stayed like that, our foreheads touching, until finally he spoke.
“As for Thrykis, part of me wishes you had never gone.
But part of me also knows that you are more than capable of doing everything that you did.
" He drew in a breath. "I am learning that I cannot suffocate you.
" He closed his eyes. "I am still jealous.
I am still terrified of losing you. I still want you to myself.
But I will not make you suffer for it. Not right now. Not while you are gone and need—"
"Need what?"
"Need to know that I love you anyway. No matter what."
Something in my chest warmed.
"I told you I am learning. And I admit I have regressed since losing you. But I have had time to turn everything over in my head while you were gone."
"And?"
"I thought of how there were many things we did not get to do together." He laughed quietly. "Like eating strange fruit. Or traveling to strange kingdoms."
He drew in a breath. "When you were gone I felt broken because I missed you. Because we had not gotten to do those things together." He paused. "But then I felt broken because you had not gotten to do those things at all."
He grabbed my hand and the look in his eyes was nothing short of anguish, with an earnestness I had never seen before. “I understand now, Asharin. I want you to eat strange fruit even if it is without me. Even if—"
Before he could finish I was on him, unbuttoning his shirt, my mouth pressed to his.
"I love you," I said. "We will see it all together. Because you are the man I want to see it with."
He lifted me and set me down gently on the bed. I pulled down his pants and he was inside me. I closed my eyes and moaned.
"I am yours, Colsar Rathmor," I said. I pressed my lips to his and he kissed me back, running his tongue along my teeth while he thrust slowly, the room soon filling with the sound of our bodies.
"Always so fucking wet," he murmured in my ear.
"Only for you," I said.
"Not for anyone else?"
"No one," I breathed.
His thrusts became harder, more certain, deeper, until I broke underneath him and he called my name.
When it was over I took off my clothes, which had somehow managed to stay on the entire time. He stared at me.
"You look lovestruck," I said with a small laugh.
"I am," he said, pulling me down next to him.
I leaned into him. "I want to tell you everything about the memory stones. About what happened to my mother."
Colsar said nothing.
"But I am scared of the pain that will come with revisiting the memory."
He kissed the top of my head.
I closed my eyes briefly. When I opened them he was in his siakar form in the corner of the room, in front of the tunnel entrance. He stared at me with those mismatched eyes and I understood.
The last time I had bared my soul to him, the last time I could not handle my emotions, I had been in a cave in the forest of the Baron's manor, full of the sort of pain that made it hard to breathe.
I looked at him. Then stood, wrapping the blanket around me. Then I lay down next to him on the floor, nuzzling my head into his fur.
And I told him the story of my mother.