“I don’t see it and I don’t care about it.” I stop, because that sounded wrong. “Of course I care that you were hurt. I care that you almost died. I care…” My voice chokes, but I force myself to keep speaking. “I care that I was the one who did that to you.”
His eyebrows draw down, but it’s a thoughtful frown not an angry one. “You blame yourself for this.”
“Yes! Of course I do! It was my fault. I never should have been on that cliff with you. But I wanted to see you before you left for military training. Then the storm came for me and I thought you died. I thought I lost you…”
I gasp. He’s taken two steps forward and suddenly we’re standing a mere inch apart. He’s so tall that I have to tilt my head back to see his face. His head slants down to mine but his hands stay at his sides.
He doesn’t close the gap between us.
He says, “I bound myself to you because I wanted to.”
My heart thumps inside my chest. A shock of lightning travels through my spine in both directions: up across my shoulders and down to my toes. It comes from deep inside me, triggered by his voice and the nearness of his body. I forget that I could hurt him—kill him. The lightning reaches out. It wants to connect. I lean forward, but what he says next makes me freeze.
“My father told me you had nightmares.”
I swallow, keeping my voice low. “Elise told me they thought you wouldn’t walk again.”
He says, “I almost didn’t. Then I thought of never standing beside you again.”
“But you disappeared, Bae. You stayed away from me.”
“I had to. I had to… force myself to keep moving in the opposite direction to you because if I didn’t, I’d find myself here, tearing down these walls to get to you.”
The light reappears in his eyes. Nobody ever invoked the heartstone bond before so I don’t know anything about its effects, what it looks like, but the light in his eyes, the way he looks at me, draws me closer to him. Dangerously close.
I whisper, “I don’t get to choose who I love.”
“Is that why you nominated yourself? So you can control the outcome?”
“Yes.” It’s true, but I can’t tell him the real reason why. “But what if it only makes things worse?”
“Nothing could be worse than being this close to you and not being able to touch you.”
Heat builds between us. Physical, tangible heat. The gap between us is so narrow, so delicate that any movement might close it. The glow from the corner of my eye tells me that I’m not in control of the lightning right now. Light twists along my arms and legs, reaching through my dripping and ripped clothing, wisps of it reaching out toward him.
For the first time, I wonder why Elise hasn’t stepped in, raced forward, kept us apart, and that’s when I realize…
Nothing else is moving. She’s frozen beside the wall, one leg raised as if she was in the process of taking a step forward.
I’ve used the thunder. I’ve slowed time. I’m not sure when I did it, but relief floods me. I exhale and it’s like breaking chains. For the first time, I can speak freely.
“I can’t lose you again, Bae. I thought you died once and it killed me.”
“You won’t lose me.” The corner of his mouth turns up in that rare half-smile that makes my heart thud. “I made sure of that when I took the oath.”
“But when you bonded to me, you made yourself a target—”
His smile disappears. “I’m already a target. I’m the last Rath. I have a right to a seat on the Elven Command, but they won’t let me near it. They’ve kept me away by electing me as the Commander of the Elven Army instead. Just like they did with my father. I command the army, but they command me. Theychooseto keep me at arm’s length, away from the decision-making. And you…”
His gaze passes across my face like a caress. “You defied them today. You have no idea how afraid they are of you.”
My control on time is slipping. Elise’s foot begins to lower and I know she’ll separate us in a matter of seconds. I have so much to ask him like where he went all those years that he disappeared, and what is his plan for finding out what’s going on with the Elven Command. I want to tell him about the curse, but I can’t. And that’s my worst problem. Bae doesn’t know about it, but he knows I have the right to yield in battle. If, somehow, we make it to the final two, he trusts me to yield instead of killing him.
He trusts me.
He steps back: one step, then two, pulling away from me and part of me goes with him. The light in his eyes fades and the lightning playing across my body turns dull and sinks back into me, left lifeless by the distance between us. The separation stabs every nerve ending in my body like a thousand needles.
“Spin gold, shelter silver,” he says. “You are worth more than both.”
