His eyesight darkened.
For a moment he thought he saw red, or perhaps that was his tears threatening to well over again, but he bit his cheek to force himself back into the present.
“...while you were drinking winterwine from your precious flask when it’s not even Absolution Day,” she continued. “While you were?—”
He guessed now was as good a time as any.
So, he didn’t wait another second.
He looked at her, all furious and beautiful, and dropped the ugliest truth he’d ever told.
“I’m dying, Ezer.”
It was the first time he’d ever spoken it out loud to anyone. The first time he’d decidedhimselfto tell the truth. He’d never even told Soraya about his fate, for it was Arawnthat had broken the news to her. And even with the look in Ezer’s eyes as he explained himself, even with the way her anger fizzled, and a look of pity took its place...something that normally would have set him on edge...
Today, he felt freer than he had in ages.
Like one of the bars on his own cage broke.
And he could breathe deeply, just for a moment...as if there was never any illness to begin with.
Things shifted, after that.
She saw him.
She sawhis truth, and though sometimes over the next few days, he caught her looking at him with concern in her eyes, as if she were trying to pick out the illness hiding beneath...
He had her care now.
He had her attention more than before.
He had her friendship, too, as they began to work together with Six, instead of apart. As time passed, Kinlear got the approval from the War Table to take Six outside. He’d reveled in giving Ezer that chance, and secretly loved the way she got so royally pissed off when the raphon hated the snow.
He loved it, because for the first time in what felt like forever...
He felt the innermost parts of himself begin to thaw.
He hadn’t even realized how utterly frozen he was, how hard his heart, until he spent his days with Ezer. She was the sun when he was the shadows. She was thejoywhen he had none. She gave him warmth when she laughed, and when she dug at him with her twisted little words, it reminded him that he couldfeelthings again.
Each night, he still dreamt of her. Each night, he experienced their future love in his dreams. He experienced the moment they made it, together, all the way to the Acolyte’s throne. He saw the knife in his own hands, felt the promise of freedom...
But he never saw it play out to the end.
No, he had a strange feeling that his Veilborne power was saving the victory for his waking moments.
So he could experience it all in real time with Ezer, glorious and true.
When he spent time with her in person, his mind whispered the same command, over and over.
Tell her.
Tell her what you’ve seen, what you know, what you can do.
He wouldn’t. He couldn’t, not yet, and maybe not ever, for his power was a gift... one that he wanted to save only forhim.
But he could tell her a piece of it.
He could tell her what was on his heart...and how it beat for the promise of a future with her.
