Startling Adara, Dominic took her hand and spun her around, drawing her in close so her back was to his chest. She looked up at him with a smile over her shoulder, waiting for him to takethe lead. He twirled her back out, arms extended between them, before pulling her back to him. His other hand found its place on her waist once more.
They danced and danced. The steps were uneven and clumsy, light and fun and better than what he’d imagined any ball would be like. The others followed their lead, dancing however the music led them. They leaped and twirled and clapped their hands to the beat, spinning around in each other’s arms.
Adara spun and spun and spun, blue skirts billowing around her like water shimmering underneath the starlight. Her head tipped back in delighted laughter, the flower crown so vibrant against her dark hair, like flora thriving with life in the soil from which it grew. Her sensuous lips curved in an elegant smile around teeth that shone like the moon. Her eyes were lit with such glee Dominic hadn’t even known was possible.
He admired her as one would a star—with distant glances, for he knew if he ever got too close, he would find himself burned beyond repair.
It wasn’t until late at night, when most had cleared the streets, that the music died, the musicians retiring for the night. Adara sighed with mirth, finally peeling herself out of his arms. She brushed a stray curl away from her face, adjusting the circlet of flowers atop her head.
Adara smoothed out the skirts of her dress. “I guess we should head back to the inn?” she asked.
He shook his head. It might be the atmosphere of Livisian, or the fact that he had no responsibilities here, or the magic in Adara’s laughter, or Hel, he may have even gone insane, but Dominic said, “I have a better idea.” Because, for once in his miserable life, he felt strange, different. Happy, he supposed—if he could truly remember how it was to feel anything.
Chapter 30
DominictoldtheAndreiliansto meet them in the morning at the western gate to the city, then disappeared into a tavern. Shortly after, he emerged with a bottle of red wine, and took Adara’s hand in his.
They found an empty dock, far from the likes of the stragglers still awake this deep into the night. Uncorking the bottle and setting it on the wooden planks, he sat down and slipped off his boots, letting his feet dangle into the icy water. Adara did the same.
She lifted the glass to her lips.
Her scarred hands caught his eye. It was strange to see her bare hands. “No gloves today?” he blurted, wondering why she wore them. She wasn’t ashamed of her scars, so why cover them?
“Wouldn’t look right with the dress,” she replied, inspecting a hand.
“But the boots do?” He laughed.
Adara leaned over to bump him in the shoulder with her own. “No one could see the shoes.” Once again, she looked at her damaged hands with indifference. “I cover them because one, people could identify me as the Phoenix by my scars, and two,” she shot him a pointed look, “so people like you don’t ask about them all the time.”
Dominic smirked. “In that case, how’d you get the scars?”
She shook her head, trying to suppress a grin. “You just love to get on my nerves, don’t you?”
“It’s been my favorite hobby since you arrived on the island.”
She sighed, lifting her hand and turning it at different angles in front of them, showing off the massive scars. “Training,” she said simply, and for a minute, he thought that was all the answer he’d get. “I was training one day with my magic,” she started. “I went too far, lost my grip on reality. My powers spiraled out of control. Luckily, my father was there to stop me in time before any real damage was done.”
Dominic didn’t understand how she could dismiss her injuries so easily. To him, her mutilated hands seemed to bereal damage,but he supposed it was nothing compared to what else she was capable of if her fire got out of hand.
“I burned my hands. That’s all there is to it.”
Her tone was flippant, but Dominic sensed the underlying misery. “What’s the story of Elysian?”
Adara’s eyes flickered with hope, her pain fading away. Happy to tell the stories of her gods,she started, “Goddess of Life. Long ago, before time even existed, when our world—allworlds—werenothing but dust between the stars, two gods fell in love: Elysian and Belor.”
Dominic choked on a laugh. “Life and Death fell in love?” he asked incredulously. Another reason he did not deign to believe in the gods. Their stories were outrageously, ridiculously unrealistic. “Impossible. Even if it was, wouldn’t their hearts want two very different things?”
“Not quite,” Adara mused. “Yes, they are vastly different, but the heart wants to be touched, to be held. That is why it beats relentlessly against the cage of ribs holding it captive. It wants to shed its armor, to be set free, to be loved, despite the possibility it will be broken.”
Dominic snorted. “Good thing I don’t have one.”
Adara sighed heavily, gazing out over the undulating sea. “One day, Nite, you will find that having a heart is not a weakness but a strength.”
“We shall see,” he said.
She pinned him with a forlorn stare, her lips pressing into a line, an expression that conveyed pity. It was gone in a flash. “Anyway, as the universe started changing, more gods arose, waging wars of their own, forging our worlds as their battlegrounds. Throughout it all, Elysian and Belor were separated, for Life and Death were never meant to be so close. Calandra, Moira, and Kairos—the Goddesses of Love and Fate, and the God of Time—forbid it. It defied the laws of nature. One who created and one who destroyed could never work out together.
“But Elysian refused to give up on her love so easily. Hope stood by her side, guiding her, helping her create the thing we call life.” Adara’s eyes darted around the empty harbor before a dull blue flame flickered to life in her palm. The embers wove between her fingers as she bent them to her will, morphing them into images as she continued the story. “Elysian experimentedwith many forms of life.” The flames transformed into little hands with strings attached to them, puppeteering things to life. The strings fell into her palm, pulling up fire from Adara’s skin in the shape of trees. Little fiery animals ran wild along her palms. “Then she created the most complex life form of all: humans.
