Elloven accepted her cider in shaking hands. Jesstin wrapped them in his until she was steady again. She mouthed a thank-you.
Instead of returning to the bed, he grabbed a chair from the table and sat backward, with his arms folded over the back. “The Disciples couldn’t wait. They had to either intervene or accept their entire people were damned. They decided to make one concerted attempt to get the sequestered children out of the Truther camp. Not just you and the four boys, but the ones being held for ransom too. Esmeray was a part of the group who went. And this time, the coup was successful. They got you and Taven out safely and managed to grab some of the other children, including Gennady, on their way out, but they couldn’t save them all. Esmeray took you and Gen home with her. A widowed man from Ashwind took Taven. I don’t know what happened to the others. But they all swore an oath that you and the four boys should never meet, never know about one another, which meant leaving the curias and their families behind. Esmeray went to the Easterlands, where she met Wilder Hawthorne, who was willing to claim her children as his own, and they became your family.
“You were so traumatized that your memory of your time in the camp was fragmented and unreliable, but then it started to return, which terrified Esme. On the other end of the kingdom, Taven’s adoptive father died, and Taven was lured by what he thought was his clairsight to Nightwood, to you, and Esme’s fears were suddenly a lot more rational. She got an unexpected visit from one of the elders of Eversong, who told her they had scried many futures where a child of yours and Taven’s would be responsible for ushering in the events that eventually ended their world. It was recommended Esme... smother you and Taven in your sleep, and though she promised to follow through, to appease them, she couldn’t bring herself to harm either of you.
“But she took their prophetic message seriously. She left with you and sought out Curia Rosedown for guidance. They refused to get involved in the ancient war but offered another solution. They could construct a ward over you, to keep Taven from getting you with child, and wipe your memories of that visit, of the camp, all of it, but the cost...” Jesstin’s right hand tightened to a fist. “All powerful solace magic has a cost, and the cost was your suffering. You’d never give birth to the world-ender, but you’d endure years of unspeakable horrors to satisfy the balance due.”
Elloven could no longer keep her promise. “Esme is the reason for Castien... for Fab?—”
“I have to believe she thought she was doing the right thing, but for whom? I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Each word came faster and faster. “I don’t know, but when we escape this place, you can never, ever go back to Rivenholde or the Seven Sisters. You have to promise...” His fingers raked his throat.
“Jesstin?”
Jesstin dropped onto the bed and bent over. He waved her away, but she wasn’t going anywhere.
She crawled beside him. “You can’t take this on your shoulders and make it yours, simply because...”
When he finally looked up, his mouth was turned down in defeat. “Because why, Elloven? Because I’m so in love with you, I can’t tell up from down anymore?” He slapped his face to his palms. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Elloven stared at her hands, buzzing like the rest of her. If she were alive, if she’d had her magic, the whole room would match what was happening inside of her. That he loved her seemed obvious in some ways but impossible in others. “Are you? Really?”
After a pause, he nodded.
“Then say it again, but don’t apologize.”
“I can’t,” he croaked.
“Why?” Elloven peeled his hands away from his neck. “Because of your oath? Don’t you know this is hard for me as well? But I don’t even question whether it’s right with you. I know it is. I’ve never been more certain of anything.”
“You don’t understand, but you will. Right now, the only thing that matters is getting you out of this place and away from all the madmen who put you here.”
“Not to me, it isn’t.” She squared herself and turned his head in her hand, forcing him to face her. “The only thing that matters to me is whether life is still worth living, and you’ve shown me it could be.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he whispered.
“Tell me truly what your heart feels, Jesstin, or go.”
As Jesstin’s gaze swept her face, his eyes softened. “I love you in ways I can’t even comprehend, Elloven, and I hope, I pray, unselfishly, but I can’t ever be sure of that.”
“What keeps you so hidden?” she whispered, climbing to her knees. “Jesstin Skylark, I see you, and I know you see me. How can there be anything selfish in that?”
“If only you knew.”
Elloven touched her lips to his. “I know everything I need to know. I love you, and you love me, and it’s more than enough.” She laughed as relief spread through her. How amazing it felt to say it and know it was safe. “I love you, Jess. Let it mean nothing or let it mean everything, but don’t let the moment pass without deciding where it belongs.”
Something transformed in Jesstin, like a match breathing light to a flame. He seemed to draw back, not from her but from whatever he still kept in his heart that he refused to share. It was the vulnerability flecked in his damp eyes that emphasized why it didn’t matter, why nothing he could say would change who he was to her. It wasn’t that he’d saved her... or the bond they’d been forced into. Even in his anger, he’d never looked at her and seen anything but Elloven Hawthorne, who was not the shattered parts of her terrible experiences but the ameliorated result.
The authority with which he clasped her hair in one hand at the nape, and gripped her neck with the other, was sealed with the kiss that eclipsed all the ones before it. When their bodies angled innately toward the bed, she fell back so he could take his place above her, where he belonged. He tore at the bodice of her dress, grunting through his evisceration of the fabric. He moaned when he finally tore it free and sent it to the floor with a soft thud.
“You are so beautiful, Elloven. So cursed beautiful.” Jesstin’s hands, hot against her chilled flesh, moved across her body slowly, his eyes following his movements. No one had ever wanted to know her as he did. Like rapids on a river, they flowed in symbiosis, rolling intuitively toward the inevitable culmination of their fated connection.
Jesstin swore under his breath, his neck straining when she kneaded her hand between his legs. She fought her longing to reach for his buckle. He knew what she wanted. The choice was his.
His mouth consumed hers as his hands grappled with his trousers. He pushed the two of them farther up the bed, leaving his pants behind, until it was only his skin against hers.
He reared back and spread her hair across the pillow with a sigh. “You’re no one’s possession, Elloven, but if you were, you’d be mine.”
“If I wanted to be yours? What then?”
