He looks at me with a brow lifted and asks, “What does she mean by that?”
I’m still watching the party ride off before I answer him.
“I told her that I wouldn’t put it past you to take me away to your sex lair.”
He blanches, confusion making him blink quickly. “You what? A sex lair?”
He looks so innocent in his expression it makes my lips turn up until I think my face may break.
“I’m kidding,” I chuckle, “I didn’t tell her anything. She only said that she’s glad to see me happy. That she had always hoped I’d find someone to fall for.”
I watch his eyes darken, the green pools deepening with something primal.
Like smoke, his breath wraps around me as he speaks, “Fall for someone? You believe you’ve fallen for me?”
The whisper leaves my lips, barely audible, “I have, yes.”
The water of the lake laps rhythmically against the sandy beach. It’s odd watching the waves turn to flame, or something that looks akin to it, with each crash along the black sand.
Kassiel sets up our bedrolls nearest the small fire he started and I walked to the edge of the waters to clear my head.
It shouldn’t bother me, but my mind keeps getting stuck on whether falling forhim,the man who was there the day my village burned down, is a bigger disrespect to my family or if they would find solace in knowing I’d found someone who helped me find my spark again.
My mind wrestles with itself.
It’s not like I sought out for this to happen. I didn’twantto care for The Devourer, but something within me longed for him. Even in the beginning I found myself wanting to fly too close to his darkness, I just hadn’t expected to find a home in him too.
If I could just hold these contrite thoughts away, mask them into something different…
“What in the goddess...” I utter as I continue to look into the moving waves.
A hum within myself charges the air and the reflection in the water is not that of my own, but someone entirely different.
I immediately hold my hands out, inspecting to see if they had changed too. The freckles along my arms are nowhere to be seen.
What in the goddess is happening?
I shout for Kassiel and he makes his way to where I currently kneel.
He stops paces away, the confusion on his face melting away into something that resembles pride.
“What is this?” I ask thickly with disbelief.
Kassiel edges forward and the humming of essence ceases.
“It appears, little warrior, that you’re learning to craft youriludreer.”
The hum was familiar, the same current that I felt when Kassiel and I shared the moments after the lengthy interrogation with The Hidden.
“I’d leap from the heavens where the gods reside if it meant a place next to you.”
“I’m not sure how to even summon the magic,” I admit. “It feels like whenever there’s thoughts of you or I’m reminiscing of the memories with my family, the humming in my veins begins to thrum to life.”
He blinks and looks away, his eyes go to a far away place and he bites his lip in thought.
“There was another person I knew before, a lifetime ago, with similar magic.”
Uncertainty worms through my thoughts. Why has he not spoken of this before?
