Once the shock of what had just happened registered and passed, she reached out again. “Hey, it’s alright?—”
“No…no, it’s not.” His breath was ragged, each word rushed and panicked, and his eyes were wide and shining with a strange light. “You should be running. Why are you not running?”
Her brow creased. “You didn’t hurt me, Morgen. And you’re surely not the first person with magic to accidentally release too much power when your emotions are running high.”
“I lost control,” he was saying, over and over again, shaking his head.
She didn’t know what to do. He appeared to be on the verge of some sort of panic attack, perhaps already there. Touching him would probably just make things worse, so instead, she reached out in another way.
A wave of fire, so cold it burned, blasted through the air, shimmering with midnight. He stumbled as it flashed and faded just shy of his body, the panicked words stopping and his eyes widening for a different reason.
The icy-hot feeling of the magic left her quickly. It always did, but it had been just enough to bring him back to the present moment—and to make her point.
“See?” she said, fighting to keep her voice level. Her heart was beating too fast for comfort, though she didn’t know why she was so nervous. “It happens, and I didn’t hurt you.”
“Your magic,” he murmured, not looking at her yet. “That was it.”
She tentatively took a step closer to him. “I’m not afraid of you,” she whispered.
“You should be.”
She shrugged, forcing herself to appear as apathetic as possible. “What, because you had the equivalent of a magical temper tantrum?”
He shook his head, and every inch of her came alive as he traced his long fingers lightly over her collarbone. “No. Because Ineverlose control. But when I’m around you…” He shook his head slightly. “I can’t make sense of it.”
Her breath grew shallow and uneven as he traced his thumb up the curve of her jaw. He wasn’t looking her in the eye, but when she brushed her fingers over his bare chest, his gaze shot to hers.
“Maybe it’s good to lose a little control sometimes,” she whispered.
He muttered a low, “Fuck” and dipped his head—not to kiss her like she wanted, but instead resting his brow on her shoulder. Her breath hitched, and she knotted her fingers in his hair. One of his hands was resting behind her neck, the other gripping her hip, his fingers twitching against the fabric of her undershorts. She shivered when he spoke, his lips moving against a sensitive spot just below her throat.
“Losing control is never good. Not for anyone like you or me.”
“Because our magic could hurt someone?” Her voice sounded strange; breathy and low.
His breath fanned across her skin as he laughed roughly, his voice still muffled when he replied, “Because a lack of control and an excess of power always ends poorly.”
“Do you never let go? Even just for a moment?”
He lifted his head slowly, and she found his expression had evened out again. “No,” he said softly. “Not even for you,oíche rionn.”
He pulled away and headed for the water before she could register what he’d just said. She was certain the words were in the Old Language of the gods and filed them away so she could figure out their meaning later.
Once she was in the water too, they fell back into their usual routine. She talked, he listened, only occasionally interjecting. She stuck to safe topics, things that didn’t matter, like her opinions on types of tea, her favorite star, asking what the worst weather was for flying…
But something had shifted, and they both knew it. She just wondered how long she would have to live with him pretending it hadn’t.
Hours later, when she returned home, she asked Heles,What does ‘oíche rionn’mean in the Old Language?
Heles blinked at her slowly, eyes shining in the dim light of dusk. She nudged Nya’s shoulder with her gigantic snout.It means you, little one. Night, speckled with the ever-burning fire of dying stars.
Chapter
Eight
I was wrong. I knew I was, and yet…even as they are gone forever, the child still mocks me in my dreams. She runs away when I reach for her.
—Lady Anabeth, Consort to Her Majesty Cion Livii, Queen of Aren, D’anna
