Chapter 31 #3
Adara couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled out of her as she landed on top of him, one hand braced on his chest, heaving, with their legs tangled together.
Their eyes met, his breath caressing her lips.
She stilled, gaze flickering back and forth between Dominic’s eyes and lips.
Eyes that shone with things she could not decipher—not when everything he did was an act, when every emotion he showed was a mask.
A mask that she wanted nothing more than to peel away and see who really lay beneath this blood-stained armor.
She felt the urge to trace his soft lips with her finger, her lips, her tongue.
Dominic’s chest rose and fell beneath her palm with every inhale and exhale.
But there was no steady thrum of a heartbeat against his chest, begging for her to hold it.
Adara refrained, shaking off those idiotic thoughts, but she did not move to get off him.
It felt like an eternity, staying there, chests rising and falling against one another. A sky full of stars, so open and bright they could practically see the swirling galaxies filled with other worlds, yet they only had eyes on each other.
They burst into laughter.
“Asshole,” Adara said and playfully slapped his chest as she rolled off him to lay on her back.
Gazing up at the sky, Adara wondered what kinds of worlds were out there, created by the scattered pieces of the gods’ souls when they left this world.
Constellations dotted the night sky, glimmering brightly, calling to her.
Her eyes traced each one of them until they landed on the stars that formed the shape of a fire-breathing dragon—the constellation for the goddess she was named after.
Adara hoped that when she died, she’d become a star and join the gods in the heavens one day.
She rolled onto her side, propping her head up with a fist to meet his gaze. “Have you ever been in love?”
He frowned, sighed deeply. “Yes.”
Adara reached for the bottle and took a drink. “Me too,” she explained softly.
The key around her neck suddenly bit into her, the metal cold and bitter. She traced the edges over the fabric of her dress.
Dominic’s lips turned downward, brows pulling together in what could only be sympathy. “What happened?”
“Death,” she responded, her words flat and icy.
She sighed, wishing to expel the weight that settled in her chest. “But even if that wasn’t what happened, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.
” Adara pulled the necklace that held Cal’s key out from beneath her neckline.
It swayed on the chain, the polished gold glinting in the moonlight. “We were never meant to be anyway.”
Usually, one would be happy to find out that it wasn’t their soulmate who had died, that their soulmate could still be out there, waiting for them.
But not Adara. She’d been waiting for the key to disappear, to form a ring around her finger, forever entwining their souls.
She didn’t want anyone else. She had wanted Cal.
Callan, who had always been too good for her.
Part of her was glad he didn’t live long enough to see the callous person she turned into after she escaped the Shadow Empire.
“What about you?” Adara asked, tucking the key back into her dress as easily as she had learned to tuck her former lover into the shadows of her heart and mind.
Dominic sighed, deep and longing, as he gazed up at the stars. Even with him avoiding her eyes, she could sense his pain.
“I’ve been in love twice—before I tore out my heart,” he said quietly. “If you could even call it that,” he added in a murmur. A hand ran through his hair in distress before he laced his fingers together, with his hands resting on his stomach. “I killed the first one.”
Adara blinked, muscles going taut. Dominic said the words with such indifference, such apathy. He had lived gods know how long, so maybe he was over it by now. Or maybe he simply slipped on that emotionless mask without Adara even realizing it.
Sensing her shock, Dominic glanced her way. “It was either her or me,” he said simply. “The second one . . . ” His eyes gleamed beneath the stars, suddenly full of misery. A blink and it was gone. “She was in love with another. I wasn’t good enough for her.”
“I’m sorry,” Adara murmured, a hand resting on his shoulder. “No one deserves to feel like they’re not good enough. Not even you,” she added with a sad laugh.
Dominic laughed, but it died too quickly. “I’m sorry he died,” he said, his tone suddenly grave. “I’m sure he was a good person.”
“He was.” Biting her lip, hoping for the physical pain to distract from the storm brewing in her head, Adara responded, “Much too good for someone like me.” She trained her vision on the stars once more.
A wave of silence passed over them, save for the gentle breeze rustling the paper lanterns strung over the streets and the waves crashing against the shore below.
“You were right.” It was so quiet. Her voice was barely audible.
Dominic looked over at her. “What?”
She smiled and shook her head. “You heard me. I'm not repeating myself, so you get the satisfaction of hearing me say it twice.” His only response was a laugh as he waited for her to elaborate. “About what you said after I told you about the shadow steel and dragon scale being in Blemythia. I destroy everything I touch. I am the reason everyone I’ve cared for is dead. I’m a plague, a curse.
I am the gods’ death incarnate.” She huffed a bitter laugh.
Images of the past jammed themselves into her mind.
All the crimes she’d committed in Lykrios, all the people she’d killed, all her loved ones she’d watched die.
If the memories weren’t proof enough that she destroyed everything she touched, the scars on her hands and the permanent crimson from blood in her hair were.
A gift from the gods as a reminder of who she was, who she was always meant to be.
Dominic shifted his position, turning to face her and propping his head up on a fist. “Adara, I told you I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any of that.”
“That doesn’t make it any less true.” She’d gotten everyone killed. It was her plan to escape, her plan to ally with all the kingdoms for a war against the empire, her plan that got the heirs killed. The future of Blemythia was gone because of her.
A warm hand cupped her cheek, and Adara found herself leaning into his calluses that lightly scraped against her skin.
“Don’t say that. It’s not your fault, love. It’s not your fault the universe takes away the things we love most in this world.”
“Then it is my fault for loving them and condemning them to such a wretched fate.” She should have died with them.
He shook his head slowly, the motion pained and exhausted. “Others may think we're monsters, Phoenix, but we’re only human. We can’t help who we fall for. We can only hope that they catch us.”
She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe him with all her heart, but she couldn’t bring herself to forgive all her sins.
She was a monster. She had destroyed everything.
Adara’s hand drifted to the key around her neck.
“But he’s gone.” Her breath hitched, tears suddenly pricking her eyes.
Gods, she hated crying, but the tears were a way to release what had built inside of her rather than releasing the flames.
“Callan is gone.” She didn’t know what finally overtook her to speak his name.
And as much as it hurt, it also felt good.
It was a relief to finally tell someone, to lift the weight off her chest.
Besides, their stories deserved to be told. They did not die for nothing.
“You never said how he died.” Dominic pressed gently.
Adara’s heart lurched at the memory. Her back digging into the blood-drenched ground.
The cool bite of a knife along her throat.
Cal’s white-knuckled grip on the hilt of the blade, eyes deranged and feral, blood spattered on his face.
Her pleas for both Cal to stop trying to kill her and for Alec—who stood before them with an arrow nocked in his bow aimed at Cal—to hold his fire.
Cal had come back to his senses just as Alec released the arrow. She had begged and begged him to lower the bow, to not shoot, no matter how close Cal was to killing her. Alec’s eyes held nothing, and he did not listen.
“We were betrayed by a close friend,” Adara said.
“Cal died at his hands.” Although Alecsander, as well as Callan, had been under some sort of mind control by the Shadow Empire, Adara couldn’t help her rising anger and the power that crackled at her fingertips.
She folded her fingers into her palm, suppressing the urge to burn something down.
“It wasn’t his fault,” she continued, needing to throw the words, the memories, out of her mind and into the open air where they could run free instead of pounding against her skull.
“I don’t want to be mad at him, but part of me still is.
” She couldn’t help but think if Alec had fought a little harder, would the three of them have been able to make it out alive?
Callan had snapped back to himself, granted it was with Adara’s help after she broke through the control herself.
But she had seen the defeat in Alecsander’s eyes.
He’d given up. And they both had paid the ultimate price for it when the arrow flew through the air at the same time Adara had thrown a knife to stop Alec’s shot.
Trying to hide her wavering voice was a fruitless effort.
“It wasn’t his fault,” she repeated, tears welling in her eyes.
Lacing her fingers together over her stomach to hide their shaking, Adara focused on the warmth in them.
Her power roiled beneath her skin, like she was burning on the inside.
Like she would combust if the memories were locked inside her any longer.
So she continued to talk to Dominic, who didn’t dare interrupt her. Who looked at her pained expression and mirrored it. A tear fell, steam rising from her cheek in its track. Another followed. Then another.
Dominic reached out to wipe them away. He hissed at the boiling teardrops that seared his skin, but did not back away. Using his power, an icy wind swept in, coating her like a frosty blanket. She shivered at the sudden cold, but felt immediate relief.
“He wasn’t in his right mind,” Adara went on. “He was trying to protect me and I . . . I killed him.”
Dominic brushed a strand of hair from her face, hooking it behind her ear. His cool, gentle touch was soothing, encouraging.
“I was overwhelmed by fear and betrayal. I never got the chance to forgive him.” She shook her head.
Shame washed over her at the thought of Alecsander dying with the belief that Adara truly hated him.
“Then I watched Cal die in my arms as he yielded his key to me, and I realized he wasn’t my soulmate. ”
“I made three promises that day—to Cal and myself. I promised him that I would live out the rest of my life, for myself and for him. It was his last request.” Live, Adara.
Live . . . for me. She had only nodded her head, tears rolling down her face as she squeezed his hand in hers, and promised that she would live because he could not.
“I promised to never fall in love again because all it leads to is pain and misery.”
Dominic merely nodded, deep understanding in his eyes.
“And I promised that I would make it my life’s mission to destroy any tyrants like the ones that caused us so much pain.
That I would tear this world apart, piece by piece, if it meant ridding it of all the selfishly harmful people there are.
That I would never take an innocent life.
” Adara blinked against the tears threatening to pour down her face once again, willing them to disappear.
His thumb brushed across her cheek, wiping away a tear. Adara focused everything on that touch, gentle and reassuring.
Calloused hands from a boy with a callous soul, but they were so soft around her. “I won't leave you,” he said. Dominic extended his right hand—the one with the scar from their blood oath—and raised his pinky finger toward her. “You will not fight alone,” he swore.
Adara sniffed, blinked away the tears. She didn’t care if it was all an act.
She needed him right now, needed to know that Dominic—a soul that was a mirror to hers—was with her.
That she had found someone in this world who understood why she’d done what she’d done.
Someone who saw the monster she’d become and did not balk. Someone who promised she was not alone.
Something jolted inside her, like her fractured heart had been shocked back to life, finally beginning to mend. Adara returned the favor, locking her pinky around his with a nod, and added, “Till death and beyond.”
Dominic smiled, so bright and beautiful that it competed with the dazzling stars for her attention. He reached for her hand, thumb running over all those ragged scars. “Do it again,” he said.
Adara’s brows furrowed in confusion.
“The butterflies,” he said.
She grinned at the absolute lack of fear in those eyes filled with awe.
Fire sparked in her palms. A flaming butterfly sprouted from her hands and fluttered through the air.
More and more followed until they were surrounded by dozens of little blue butterflies fluttering about.
The fire swirled and crackled with each flap of their wings, leaving shadows and light to dance along the sharp angles of Dominic’s face as his eyes followed them in awe.
He raised a hand, his magic thrumming to life at his fingers.
Rivulets of water delicately flowed through the air, carefully winding around the butterflies, never extinguishing their flames.
Verdant leaves materialized above them, falling gently through the air.
A few butterflies landed on the leaves mid-fall, igniting the kindling, burning them to ash that scattered on the wind.
Adara could have stayed there forever as they lay on the roof.
Their fingers were laced together as their magic danced before the backdrop of stars glittering above, reflecting off the dark waters below so that it looked like they were nothing but shadows of souls trapped between the heavens, encased in the midst of the universe.