Chapter 34
thirty-four
. . .
Ever
Agentle heat warms me, and I want to lean into it and glow in the comfort that surrounds me. Warmth surrounds me, and the faint scent of citrus and salt.
My lips pick up into a smile as my eyes flutter open, and I understand where the heat is radiating from.
Ten.
He’s wrapped his arm around me, securing me to him, pulling me against him as if to protect me from the edge of the bed.
It’s a small cot, not ideal for two, but that didn’t seem to matter last night.
I sigh as a stretch creeps over my legs and up my torso, begging me to ease some of the muscles in my body.
It feels right. Such a simple moment. A normal moment. Waking up next to the boy you love. Safe, without a care in the world. For a moment, I can forget about everything else and just bask in the sheer joy and tranquillity of this. Of us.
“Good morning.” Ten’s voice is deep, rough with sleep, and sounds beautifully tempting.
“Morning.”
“Did you sleep well?” His eyes are still closed, but there’s a tiny hint of a smile at the corner of his lips, which I choose to acknowledge with my own.
“Yes.” It’s the truth, and after our time together, I never want to be apart from him again. “If I could choose real beds with mattresses to be the only places we sleep going forward, I would happily.” The confines of my cells were never as bad as the cave.
“I’d agree, with one stipulation.” He opens his eyes to look at me. “You’re next to me. Every time. No more separations. Deal?” He kisses my nose.
“That is a deal I would love to make, Ten.”
“I feel there’s a but coming.”
“Just…” I don’t want to make promises when there’s so much at stake—so many unknowns.
It’s easy to think of those things while we’re here, but we both know there’s a storm to face.
“I won’t make a promise that I can’t keep.
I won’t lie to you. And who knows what’s coming?
” The memory of the black smoke, curling from my hands, and telling everyone my magic might not be as gone as I had thought, springs to mind.
The stuttering visions that started that feeling of madness, too.
Does it mean my magic is there, just dormant, or changed?
Am I like I was before my Transference—is this a new awakening? So many questions.
“No. I’ve only just got you back. You’re safe, and you’ll stay that way. And if that means I don’t let go of your hand, that I have to fight everyone in the Court, then so be it. It cannot be worse than what we’ve already been through.”
My eyes glisten with the emotion of what his words conjure. “I love you, Aten Ciro. I want you by my side for whatever we face, but this isn’t your battle.”
“Stop it.” He pushes me onto my back and leans over me, sweeping his thumb over my cheek.
I track his eyes, so familiar, so comforting, as they watch me.
“I love you, too, Ever Hart. There isn’t a fight I wouldn’t win to protect you.
But this isn’t just your fight, not if you’re right about the Usher.
This is everyone’s fight. Including Aslendrix herself. ”
I lean up and capture his lips with mine, freely kissing him now, when before there would have only been hope of a whisper, an anticipation.
The kiss tastes just as good as all of that. Hot, passionate, and filled with the longing that used to tease us—but now I know what it feels like.
His mouth opens to mine, and his body presses me back into the bed, his weight a shield to the world and there to protect me.
“Now,” he pulls back, cutting off where this was leading. “If we’re done with that, let’s get ready and go downstairs.”
“But—”
“Patience, Little Siren.”
After raiding the kitchen for breakfast, I walk into the main room we use to display the items we, or rather Lyle, has traded or collected for sale. She’s setting a few things on the table, rearranging a jug, a collection of cups, and a silver tankard that’s been on offer since before I left.
“Are you ready?” I ask, hopeful that she’s changed her mind from last night.
Her hands still for a moment before returning to her work. “I’m not coming with you. I’m going to stay here and make sure you have a home to return to.”
She doesn’t stop her task, continuing to shift the items that don’t need any attention at all.
“No.” I shake my head. “You can’t. It might not be safe here, what if—”
“It won’t be safe for you in Kirrasia either. Stars, Ever!” Lyle turns to me.
“I can’t stay and do nothing.” I will her to understand as we lock in a staring contest. I see the stubbornness in her, but sadness douses the anger that reared last night at her refusal to stand up for us.
In that instant, I fall back into the moment when she was sent away from me, outside the Tower. But I can’t reconcile the woman who filled me with such strength, such determination to hold my head and not show any weakness, with the woman who is hiding from what’s to come.
Would it be easier for me to run? To hide? To bury my head to the woes of the world and vanish with Ten until the repercussions of those actions are at our door? Yes.
But that’s not the right thing to do, and Lyle is the woman who taught me that. Squaring her decision in my mind is an impossible task.
“When I had to leave you, I thought it was the right thing. The safe thing, even if it crushed me. Now you’re back, safe, and I don’t want to lose you again.” She offers her explanation, one that only pulls at my heart, threatening to open the wound that is still so fragile from her first betrayal.
“You won’t.” I step towards her and squeeze her hands. “This isn’t the same, Lyle. I know that.”
“Do you? Because from where I’m sitting, it’s worse. Much worse.”
“You staying here won’t keep me safe, just the opposite.
I want you by my side. But when you left me, it made me realise that I am stronger than I thought.
You did that by being strong for me. So, I will do this even if you choose not to come.
My strength is the one thing people underestimate, and I’ll continue to count on that until I meet someone who finally sees me as the threat I know I can be.
” My voice grows hard, edged with the steel that’s been forged in the furnace of my heart, stoked from the battles and pain that I’ve suffered since setting foot in Kirrasia.
And maybe this conversation with Lyle is what I need to finally understand that I can rely only on myself.
That my strength is within me, with or without Aslendrix’s gift.
I walk away, not for the first time, and head out of the cottage that was my home, craving the air and the possibilities of the outside. I walk around to the back of the house and am confronted by a familiar friend.
“Nettle? Is that you?” I stroke his neck and am rewarded by a whinny that can only melt the hard exterior that has protected me from the disappointment Lyle has crafted. “Good boy. How are you even here, hmmm? Well, I’m glad you are. It will be good to have another friend for the journey back.”
The house becomes busy with activity, the handful of us now dwarfing the space that was always only for Lyle and me.
Lyle lets us ransack the place for supplies to cover the days ahead. It’s colder than when we travelled to Kirrasia and colder than in Nehandun.
Kalan hasn’t said a word. And even Calix is quiet.
Tension weighs heavily in the air, like a foreboding shadow of what lies ahead.
It would be easy, as easy as breathing, to turn around, go back to my room and lock the door. I’d sleep for a week. But I’ve already ruled that option out. It would make all our sacrifices for nothing, and Crimson’s death is worth more than an easy life.
It’s only been a few months since I left, yet I’m here again. Venturing into the unknown. At least I’m armed with as much knowledge as I can gather this time. Instead of secrets, I have the truth to shield me.
Ten hovers, and I’d wager he’d be holding my hand if he could, staying true to the words he whispered to me. I can’t be cross. It’s charming, in a way. And I let myself take solace in the new connection we’re building, a new one that doesn’t intrinsically link us.
Lyle doesn’t come out to see us off, even after we wait far longer than we should. And still I linger, testing Kalan’s tolerance for patience to its limit.
“Ever. We have to go.”
“I know!” I snap at Kalan and immediately regret it. “I’m sorry. Just… I need a minute, okay.”
He nods and turns his horse around, leaving me for a moment.
I stare at the cottage, and a vision hits.
No, not a vision. A sense of familiarity.
But it sends chills over my body, creeping over me and pulling me into fear.
This view of the cottage is the image I saw in my mind the first time I left for Kirrasia.
Not similar, the same. That sense of déjà vu when I left the first time wasn’t just familiarity, it was my glimpse at the future—the future I’m living now.
It was so similar—I was confused and scared—I didn’t see it, but now, I do.
My heart starts to thunder in my chest at the reality of another vision coming true, proving Ten’s constant reassurance wrong. I swallow the shaking down and push through the taste of bile rising in my throat.
Not because I’ve seen myself lying wounded and bleeding, but because of what I did to Ascella.
“Hey, room for one more?”
Lyle’s voice startles me and pulls me from my spiral.
She’s there, right in front of me. My spirit lifts from the punch of adrenaline and joy that seeing her saddled and ready on a horse gives me.
Her soft smile banishes the fear that had crept into my soul at my realisation that my visions maybe did show the future.
But I keep that to myself.
“Yes.” My answer comes out a little breathy, full of relief. “Yes, of course. What changed your mind?”