I gestured to a place where the hall protruded outward in a decorative half circle. A small table was there now, but azylarr, a feeding place for souls, would be perfect.
“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” he commented.
“I love this hallway,” I told him. “It’s one of my favorite places in the keep. I get lost here sometimes, maybe just like the souls.”
“And why do you like it?” he wanted to know, smoothing back a wild wave from my face.
“Because it feels like how stories do. Like you can be transported to another place,” I said. “Here the world goes quiet. It’s like an endless night, one filled with starlight, even on the sunniest of days. It’s like magic. To me, that’s what stories are. Little moments of magic…in an otherwise normal day.”
His gaze was soft as he listened to me. “I do like the way your mind works,kyrana.”
He seemed loath to look away, but he considered the hallway with new eyes, observing the stained-glass windows, no two the same, and the darkness beyond.
“Azylarrfor the souls? Consider it done,” Kaldur murmured, pressing a kiss to my temple. “Any other requests?”
Suddenly I was nervous. I’d gone over the words in my head multiple times, and still they didn’t sound right. I’d even writtenthem out, practicing them. But all my attempts now seemed silly in the face of reality.
This was Kaldur, after all. He appreciated directness and simplicity.
His lips quirked in confusion when I stared up at him. “What is it?”
“I…I lo?—”
He flinched, jerking his head to the right. “A soul touched me.”
“Well,” I bit out, my heart racing, “azylarrwould certainly help. Like I was?—”
He inhaled sharply again, his wing flaring as if brushing something away.
“Another one,” he murmured. “Raazos’s blood.”
His other wing flared out, and I laughed out of nerves and hysterics.
“Kaldur.”
“Why are there so many suddenly? It’s?—”
“Kaldur, I’m trying to tell you that I love you!” I rushed out in a breathless laugh.
His breath inhaled in a sharp whistle, his wings frozen and hovering after trying to bat away unseen souls, those silver eyes pinned on me.
“Only, it’s not going quite how I planned. Nothing with you seems to and yet it’s always just how it’s meant to be,” I said, smiling up at him as tears made my vision waver. “Perfect.”
A long beat of silence passed. Then…
“Say it again,” he growled.
I softened, relief making me dizzy. Such simple words, and yet…they’d meant everything to me.
I held his eyes. I reached up to touch his lips, feeling them part between my fingertips. “I love you,” I said quietly as the moon winds howled outside the hallway. “I’ve loved you since I first saw you the day I came to work in your keep. I thought that it was an innocent love. But now I think a part of my soulrecognized you as mine that day, and it’s been captured by you ever since.”
“Erina,” he murmured. He processed the words before the corner of his left lip lifted. He looked pensive or perhaps nostalgic—I couldn’t be certain. All I knew was that the way he was studying me made me feel like it the first time seeing him all over again. All fluttering pulses and electric excitement.
Then he sighed, a small laugh escaping him. Kaldur took my face into his palms, cupping my cheeks.
“I never told you this, but two years ago I started feeling like a stranger in my own body,” he said.
“What?” I asked, smiling a little in confusion, still feeling the adrenaline rush of my confession. “What are you talking about?”
