Chapter 39
Sleep eludes me, so I sit at the mouth of the cave, listening to the sounds of everyone’s steady breathing while sketching a vague memory of a circular building hewn from ancient stone.
Like a tower, it scrapes the edges of the clouds, but a domed roof opens to the night sky, allowing starlight inside.
And the sky is full of it.
With the point of my silver stylus, I scatter the stars across the parchment in a wild, instinctual pattern that feels inexplicably right.
Like I know exactly where each belongs, even though there are hundreds of them.
Thousands, even. The motion comes as naturally as breathing, my hand moving before thought can catch up.
By the time I’m done, my pulse thrums in my neck, like I’ve run all the way to Caer Draen and back.
Something shifts beside me. I look up just as Taliesin joins me, taking a seat on the stone by my side. The last traces of icy blue are finally gone from his skin. He glances at the drawing.
“Very good,” he says. “Is that the Observatory?”
I swallow. “I think so.”
His gaze searches mine. “Do you remember anything else? Or anyone else?”
“If you’re asking if I remember what happened in your dreams, I don’t.” My voice lowers to a whisper, my heart pounding harder. “Do you finally want to tell me?”
“You came to me, and we talked,” he says quietly.
“Hmm.” I arch a brow. “As little as I can remember, I do know it was more than that, Taliesin.”
The corner of his mouth twitches, though something like sorrow hovers beneath it. He reaches up to cup my cheek, brushing his thumb over my skin with aching tenderness. His eyes hold pain and something else. Something I can’t name but feel deep in my gut, pounding there like a second heartbeat.
“Only once,” he murmurs. “Months ago. You stopped visiting me after that. I assumed you regretted it.”
“Just once?” I breathe.
“Believe me when I say I wanted to for many years before that. Even in my dreams, it felt like we were bound—like fate was trying to force us together.” He releases a sigh that’s rough and heavy with longing.
“And no matter what you said, all I wanted was to be close to you. That’s all I want now.
Even if I can’t touch you, I just want to be near. ”
“You can touch me,” I whisper before I can stop myself.
But I mean every word. I want him to touch me more than anything.
For a moment, I don’t think he will. Then he leans in, still cradling my face between his hands, and brushes his lips against mine so softly it feels like the kiss of wind across my skin.
My heart trembles. Want and need crashes through me all at once.
I clutch his tunic and pull him closer, kissing him back with a hunger I feel deep inside my bones.
A low sound rumbles in his throat. Then his control shatters. His mouth crashes against mine, and his hands slide to my waist, pulling me so tightly against him I can feel every hard line of his body. The scent of leather and rowan surrounds me, dizzying and wholly Taliesin.
I slip my hand along his shoulder, tracing the shape of him, learning every inch until I reach his throat. My fingers splay across his skin there, and the rapid thrum of his heartbeat echoes my own.
His hand covers mine. He holds it there, like he knows I could stop his heart if I chose, and it doesn’t matter. Like he wants me anyway, in spite of what I am.
Desire flares in my core.
I bite his lower lip. He groans, his hands sliding to my hips and guiding me onto his lap. My knees settle on either side of his waist, and I feel him hardening against me. Another wave of want crashes over me with a burning heat.
He clutches me tighter, shifting his length against me. Stars blaze in my eyes. My nails dig into his shoulders, and his fingers bite into my thighs, and the fire burning through me is almost unbearable.
My breath catches as his hand trails down my thigh. He skims the edge of my core, stopping just short of where I need him the most. I gasp, pressing closer.
He hums approvingly.
“Taliesin,” I whisper.
Then he stills. And with a torturous sigh, he pulls back.
“I can’t,” he says roughly. “Fuck, I want to, but I can’t.”
“Because I don’t have my memories of us,” I say, my heart still pounding.
“It doesn’t feel right.” A muscle ticks in his jaw. “I know the shape of your body.” His voice dips lower. “I know how you taste. It isn’t right for me to fuck you now, when I know all that and you don’t.”
The words hang there between us for a long moment.
Then a rueful smile curves his lips. “Besides, I’d rather not have an audience when I make you scream my name. I want to be the only one who hears it.”
I sit back, the aching want nothing compared to the warmth I feel from his words.
“You’re a good man,” I whisper. “There are many who would just take what they want without thinking of the cost. Their partner’s state of mind wouldn’t matter.”
“How you feel will always matter to me.”
I link my arms around his neck, letting myself hold him for a few more moments.
In his arms, I feel anchored and safe, like fire could rain down from above and still couldn’t reach me here.
My gaze traces his face, committing it to memory, hoping I never lose it this time.
The strong curve of his jaw, the fullness of his lips, the slant of his brow over his ice blue eyes.
A sudden urge rises within me. I want to draw him.
Slowly, I extract myself from his arms and settle back onto the ground beside him. As I search my pack for the last sheet of parchment, I feel his gaze track my every movement. When I find my silverpoint, I begin to sketch.
At first, I steal glances at his face to ensure I draw the right lines.
But soon, I don’t need to look. My hands seem to know him better than they know anything else—better than even my own reflection.
The long line of his neck takes shape first, then the curve of his sharply tipped ear.
Then the arc of a crown stretching across his brow.
The stylus slips from my fingers and clatters against stone.
I stare down at the drawing, my heart wrenching painfully.
“Are those the iron bands?” he asks with a soft chuckle. “Rhian will get a kick out of that.”
“It’s not the iron bands,” I whisper. “It’s a crown.”
“A crown?” He arches a brow. “Well, I suppose when all this is over, we can rule over the exiled lands side by side. Bryn can be the Hand of the King. She’d like that.”
I swallow hard. My hands are so slick I have to press them against my trousers. “No, you don’t understand. This isn’t something I imagined. It’s a memory. You, wearing that crown.”
But there’s more. So much more.
“I’ve never worn a crown in my life,” Taliesin says, the humor gone from his voice.
“You have,” I whisper, lifting my eyes to his. “All gods did. You’re the King of Winter.”
Something dark passes over his face. “That’s impossible.”
“You don’t remember your childhood. You said so yourself.”
“Yes, but…” he trails off.
“And your power is beyond anyone else’s,” I press, a feverish heat rising to my cheeks. “You’re one of the gods. You survived the Culling. You just…don’t remember it.”
His eyes glint with that ancient darkness that for once I understand. Taliesin Wynn is not just an elven man. He’s an ancient being, one who once walked this earth with unbound magic running through his veins.
“If I’m a god, then what does that make you?” he asks in a low, dangerous voice.
My heart beats a wild rhythm. That question holds far too much weight for me to carry it. Because if Taliesin is the King of Winter, if he has forgotten because of his own lost memories, then what does that say about me?
It says everything.
But I still recoil against it.
“I can’t be,” I whisper. “My power does behave like yours. It’s limited. It—”
“Because the Order fucked with it,” he cuts in.
The words stop me cold.
“You remember the stars.” He gestures to the drawing of the Observatory. “You remember this. That building is from before the Culling, too. Tell me how that works if you’re not the same as me.”
“I can’t be a goddess, Taliesin.”
“You’re a goddess to me.”
A painful silence stretches between us. I glance over my shoulder, half-expecting the others to have awakened and to be listening to our conversation. Whatever this is, it could change everything—how they see us, how easily they trust us, whether they want us in their rebellion at all.
But the camp remains still.
I turn back to Taliesin, whispering. “If this is all true…what do we do with it? How do we move forward?”
“We get into that Observatory and we take back the harp,” he says, a brutal smile curving his lips. “And then we bring the Order to its fucking knees. We’ll become the gods we once were.”