“Headaches. Sleeplessness. Mistaking people for hallucinations.” His glamour slipped, and his sharpened nails clinked along the glass, punctuating his words. “Were you having these symptoms before you returned to Fernglove?”
“Yes.” I fidgeted beneath the sheets. “I still have headaches, but if anything, being here has made things better.”
“Are you certain? Or are you saying that to convince yourself?” He drained the rest of his beverage and then set the glass down with a definitive thud. Gone were his amber irises, and instead I was staring at endless ink-black eyes that were excellent at hiding emotion. “A few hours playing with my magic leaves you exhausted and lethargic. What happens when you push yourself too far? You don’t have threads to spare, Edira. You need to stop.”
“Is that what this is about? Because you saw my threads earlier?” I yanked off the sheets and stood. “I told you, the type of magic we’re doing does not affect my lifespan.”
“But you don’t know that.” In one fluid motion he was standing before me. With surprising gentleness, he ran one finger along my jaw and tilted my head left to right, inspecting for signs of illness. “We are in uncharted territory with this heartbond of ours. I won’t risk your life anymore until we know it’s safe.”
I pulled away from his grasp. “That’s a funny way of saying ‘never again.’ We will never know if it’s safe, because this”—I gestured between us—“has never happened before. Not to your knowledge, anyway.”
His smile was stiff. “I’m fine with never.”
“So you’ve mentioned.”
We were only a breath apart, and neither one of us appeared in the mood to give way. It was a thrill, not knowing who would break first.
“Where does that leave us?”
Rather than move away, he strode forward, and I was forced to take several steps back until my legs hit the bed. He reached above me and gripped the top railing of the four-poster frame. Leaning forward, he dipped his head toward mine.
“You stay here until we figure out how to deal with the Embergraves, but after that”—his jaw clenched as his gaze roved the length of my body—“you leave. You get the hell away from this place and live a peaceful life far away from us. Protect the few life threads you have left instead of risking them for unknowns.”
“No.” My heart cantered wildly in my chest.
“No?” His lips tilted in the first sign of amusement all evening. “Edira, you don’t have the power to stop your own death. You don’t have the power to stop blight. You don’t have the power to stopme. Don’t waste your life for nothing.”
“I could stop you if I wanted.” The scent of his magic lingered on his skin, and desire roared to life in my veins. His body was right there. His hands blissfully occupied the space above my head. I could easily touch the broad expanse of his chest.
His grin was a sinful, dangerous thing. “I doubt that.”
My hands went to the hemline of his shirt, easily slipping beneath the fabric and grazing the contoured planes of his stomach. He stiffened, and a warning simmered from the back of his throat in the form of a growl. It only fueled my want.
“Tell me something,” I whispered as I stood on my toes, dragging my hands up with me. He was a statue beneath my touch, his breath annoyingly even. As if he’d spent his days training with Ywena just for this moment. “What do you actually want, Rorik?”
He inched closer so I was pressed firmly against the bed, just moments from being toppled over, and he let one arm fall away from the frame so he could cup the side of my face. With heartbreaking tenderness, he rubbed his thumb across my cheek. My lips. Time slowed as I fell into the endless void that was his heady stare, and the backs of my knees weakened. He’d leaned so close that I could feel his breath on my mouth, and I swore the hunger in his expression was a mirror to my own. I shouldn’t have wanted him the way I did, but I was beyond denying it. My body ached for him. He had to feel the same. He had to...
“I want you to leave.” Slowly, he released his grip on the bed and took several steps back. “No more magic.”
And with that, he fled. Anger flushed through me with a side of embarrassment, and heat flamed my cheeks as I sank to the bed. I wanted to scream. To throw something or slap that irritatingly gorgeous face of his. He’d teased me for so long, but maybe that’s all it was. A deep pang spurred from my chest, and I flattened my palm over my heart. I didn’t understand him, that much was obvious. And he wasn’t about to let me close enough to try.
“Fuck him,” I mumbled to myself as I flopped back onto the bed. He might have just retracted his offer to help me harness his magic, but I’d learned enough. And I wouldn’t let him stop me.
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING,I headed for the library where I could watch the path leading away from the estate. It still bothered me to no end that neither myself nor Seville had been able to detect Kara’s presence until she was standing directly before us. I wasn’t sure exactly when she’d return today, but I didn’t want to be surprised. Not again.
Settling onto the window bench, I grabbed a book to pass the time.Fable or Fact: A History of Evershad somehow survived the downfall of Fernglove and, despite a few tears to its already weathered cover, was in good condition. The tome was remarkably thick and full of anecdotes spanning centuries, but my favorite had always been the story of how Evers came to be. My fingers dawdled over the script, and I hummed to myself quietly, not noticing that Seville had joined me in the library.
“Reading about Rebellyn?” Seville asked quietly, taking a seat across from me at the other end of the bench. She was dressed in smooth slacks and a green blouse, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. “She was a cunning woman.”
“Rebellyn?” I glanced back at the text, but there was no name to be found. The fable was short and read more like a bedtime story than an article of fact.
“She was the First. Obviously, pieces of history are often lost to time, but some families were able to maintain records of her existence more accurately than others.” Seville stared out the window at the quiet lawns, her gaze far away. Likely she was looking for Kara, too.
“How much of this is real?” I asked.
“There’s truth to every fable. Death, for example, is very, very real.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” I said. “Things die. Of course it’s real.”
