She stared at him with an intensity akin to the blaze inside him. He expected her to kiss him again or for her to hold him tighter. But she turned away, her bare shoulder suddenly cold.
“Nes?” His voice cracked on her name, and he watched her whole back sink as she exhaled.
“I don’t love you,” she said.
He blinked. He hadn’t expected…love. They’d only known each other a few weeks. He didn’t expect her to love him. But he didn’t expect her to tell him she didn’t, either.
“I don’t love you,” she repeated. Her voice dropped to a whisper as she turned to face him. “But I feel it.”
He reached for her—her hands soft and clammy in his grip. “Feel what?”
She was staring at him in a way he’d never seen before. The look in her eyes made him wonder if it was possible to tame the sea.
“How easily I could.”
Everything in him went still.
She could love him. Nes could love him. And he…
When Loriana told him she loved him, the words had been so welcome, so light and gentle, like a caress across his heart. It had been the first time he remembered hearing those words. Before her, no one—not his friends, not Kohen, not even the King—had said they loved him.
But Loriana had.
When Loriana died, his love for her had been left to rot his heart, curdling the blood pumping through it. Her death had sickened him more than the alcohol ever had, and the love left behind was tainted. This was not the love he wanted to offer Nes. It wasn’t the love she deserved. Moreover, the love still belonged to Loriana and, dead or not, he couldn’t take that love away from her.
He’d forgotten what happiness felt like. He’d also forgotten how devastating it felt to lose it.
Though he kept his words delicate and soft, he knew the blow they’dland, the bruises each one would leave on Nes’s heart. “You shouldn’t,” he said at last. “Because I can’t.”
This time, when he met her eyes, there was nothing there. Nothing but a deep, fathomless blue.
“It wouldn’t be fair to you. You’re incredible. But I can’t love you the way you should be loved.” He kept talking, if only because he needed her to understand. He wanted to believe he could love her. She’d made him feel things he hadn’t thought possible after Loriana. But Loriana was still there. In his heart. In his mind. She’d consumed him, and he was still trying to find himself among her ruins. “I loved her too much, I think. And when I lost her, that broke me.”
Without speaking, Nes stood from their nest and gathered up her clothes. She pulled her shirt over her head and slid one leg, then the other, into her pant legs. She glanced briefly at him before grabbing her shoes under the window and turning away.
He knew he shouldn’t, but…“Nes?”
He needed her to say something, anything. It was okay if she hated him. She had every right. But he couldn’t lie to her, couldn’t lead her on.
She stopped in front of the bedroom door. Her back to him, she said, “Everyone’s broken, Toran. That’s what this world does. It’s how you piece yourself together that matters.”
And then she was gone, leaving the door open behind her. The light from the hall bled into the room, the beam stopping just short of him.
31
Nes
Lies were better than the truth.
The truth was never what anyone wanted to hear. Nes knew that, and yet she’d felt compelled to tell Toran the truth. She should have kept her mouth shut. Had she not given him her truth, then perhaps he wouldn’t have felt compelled to reveal his own.
It shouldn’t hurt at all. He shouldn’t be able to hurt her. But he had.
So she’d run. From the start, she knew this would end with one of them running away. But she’d never imagined it would be like this.
With Suri working, their room was empty. Nes toed the door shut. This would be the last time she came here. After tonight, the room would belong only to Suri.
She would leave this Goddess-forsaken city behind her, just as she’d always planned. She didn’t have it in her to be angry with Toran. It was her own damned fault for not following her own rules. No attachments. That was what she’d always said. If only she’d listened.
