“I believe it now. I have no more magic to delude myself with. I’m setting you free.” I raise my chin. “I apologize for holding on for so long.”
Adira’s gray eyes begin to churn, her fingers curling into small fists at her side. For a moment, I think she might hit me, but she only shakes her head and says, “And here I was, thinking Niko was the arrogant prat.”
“Well…he is,” I agree, uncertain what Niko’s ego has to do with anything.
“So are you!” she shouts so fiercely, I have the good sense to take a step back. Adira’s small size may fool some, but I’ve seen the wildness contained within. I’m reminded once more, as she tilts her head in a manner reminiscent of a jungle cat, and the air sparks with her magic.
“You’ve always been able to see my emotions, so you’ve never actuallyaskedme about any of them. If you had, you would not keep such ridiculous notions in your big, thick skull.”
I stare at her.
“I want to be with you, Sam. I have always wanted to be with you, and every day apart has been a unique form of torture. Youare the only thing in this universe that brings me peace, and you arenoburden.” The storm in her eyes dies, leaving behind only the barren gray of dull sky. “I am.”
“What…what are you talking about?” I ask incredulously. “You’ve never been—"
“The wild was dying!” she interrupts. Licking her lips, she tries again, softer this time. “And every day since,Ihave been dying.”
Impatience trickles hotly down the back of my neck. “We all were.”
Adira shakes her head. “Your magic absorbed others’ pain, Sam, and made you feel it instead. You already bore so much with Niko, and I knew without asking…you would bear mine, too. And I refused to be the cause for your martyrdom. I could not be the knife with which you hone yourself, nor the blade to cut you.” Her voice breaks. “I love you too much for that.”
I stare at her stupidly, her words winding around me like a feverish whisper. Adira said love; notloved.I’ve spent so much time wondering what it would feel like to hear those words again—how it would taste, what color would shimmer in the air. It seems the height of cruelty that the universe would rob me of my magic for a moment like this, leaving me with only the maelstrom of my own emotions swirling in my chest.
“Why didn’t—” My words crack, my throat suddenly dry. My lungs too, like all the air has evaporated. “All these years, Addy…why did you never tell me?”
Her face crumples in anguish, in regret, and suddenly, I know why. The moment I’ve been dreaming of for centuries is abruptly consumed by a prickling heat—a heat that’s raced to the surface of my skin and clogged my throat. A heat, I realize, ismy own.
A silly epiphany to most, but I’ve spent so long mired in the anger of others, mine is foreign. It is not icy like Niko’s or scorching like Willa’s—it is ringing. Metallic. Bitter.
“That wasn’t your place.” The words are low.
Adira’s expression is pleading. Even a glimpse of her pain would normally sear through me like the deepest of wounds, but I feel none of her desperation now. Only my own.
“We all do what we can to protect those we love. How can you fault me for doing the same?” A tear rolls down her cheek. “I could not be the cause of your suffering, Sam. You would have died right alongside me, and I…I would not have survived it.”
“That wasn’t your place!” I shout, the words wild. Untethered.
Adira’s eyes widen, and I feel sick that I’m the one who caused it. That I’m the one who made her feel unsafe, if only for a moment. But I cannot seem to take it back. Cannot seem to reel in the anger pricking through every part of me.
My gaze flashes to hers, and though she doesn’t rear back, her lower lip trembles.
The wild eats the weak, Sam. And you make me weak.
That’s what she’d told me all those years ago on this very balcony.
“All this time,” I say faintly, running my palms over my bare scalp. Every wound pulls tight, the pain not serving as the anchor I seek, but as fuel for my anger. “All this time you let me think it wasme.You let me think I wasn’t strong enough to be the consort of the Princess of the Wild. You—you let me think I was undeserving.”
“You wouldn’t have allowed it any other way, Sam.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “The worst part is that I loved you enough to respect your decision. To never ask you to choose me over your kingdom,” I scoff, with a bitter shake of my head. “I let you lecturemeabout being a martyr when you were doing the same thing.”
“Sam—”
I raise my hand in a desperate plea to stop her words. Everything is suddenly too much. The sun on my skin, and thescratch of the cloak, and the raging storm of feeling I cannot seem to swallow down. “I can’t be here. I have to go.”
For the first time ever, I am the one to turn away. I hardly see where I’m going as I stumble down the treacherous steps of the Nyawa, my skin burning, cloak trailing behind me like a dark cloud. With the way my head swims, it’s a miracle from the second star I make it to the forest floor without breaking my neck.
The moment my boots reach the sponge of the earth, I bend over, bracing my hands on my knees in an attempt to catch my breath. To settle the rage and regret flooding through me in an untenable deluge. But no matter how I gasp for air, the storm in my chest does not abate.
