His face falls, eyes darting as they trace my expression, gauging my level of sincerity, which I cannot hide from him. Not even when I’m channeling her. Making this impossible, as I would need to believe my words in order to have any chance of convincing him.
“What I need is your absence, Varic,” I choke out as he leans over, dropping his face so close the ends of his hair brush my cheek.
“You don’t mean it,” he says, and I open my mouth to protest, but he cuts me off with more authority in his voice when he adds, “Or has that monster truly made you believe this lie? That you require nothing and no one? That you are somehow unlike any other witch in existence, relying solely on his every command for subsistence?”
I suck in a sharp breath, heart leaping into my throat.
“He has isolated you so intensely to gain ultimate control over you. But he has made a grave mistake in appointing me over your protection if he means to try to control you further. Because he cannot isolate you from us. You are not alone, Tasch. Not if you let us in.”
My chest rises and falls dramatically, waiting for him to continue while the rest of my Guards shift in place, though not uncomfortably, more in solidarity, angling themselves in a way to show how much they agree with everything Varic is saying.
“You have admitted to healing me through connection, while we all know it would not have worked had it been one-sided.” His hand seeks me across the covers, the black ink of our sigil rippling as his fingers splay the closer they come to mine. “You had to feel our connection—you had to need it to some extent—or it wouldn’t have helped either of us. It had to be real, or it wouldn’t have worked, Tasch.” His voice breaks, and my throat constricts as the truth in his statement tries to wriggle its way past my defenses.
Even if it is a lie that I need nothing and no one, it’s not something I can refute. It’s the constraints I am forced to live within which make it true.
“At least this explains why you have been avoiding me. He has made you believe that being close to me would somehow hurt you worse than he has.”
“No,” I say, without knowing exactly what I mean by it, distracted by the warmth of his fingers threading with my frigid ones.
“Tasch, please,” Varic rasps, and I slowly pry my gaze away from the space where our hands mimic that of a cherished memory—one I recount with what might be considered alarming frequency. That moment after he sent me a wave of all he had been holding in, when I sought him, and he me, and we threaded our fingers together just like this. “We’ve had this strange connection from the first day we met. You can try to deny it, but it doesn’t make it any less real. Not to you, and not to me.”
The fire behind his irises burns too brightly, overwhelming in its intensity.
“If it’s too hard to acknowledge—if he has worn you down until it is too painful for you to recognize it—I can understand. But I won’t accept you trying to convince me that you don’t need me. Because I know better.” A flash of resolve passes across his features as he snatches up my hand to press it to his bare chest.
I suck in a breath from the warmth of him, and I don’t try to fight it; instead, I press in. I give him the pressure I know he needs from me after so much uncertainty, unable to hide my care for him when it comes to this raw physicality. His heart slams against his breastbone, throbbing frenetically due to his concern for me and my well-being. “And there is nothing you can do to push me away.”
A scoff sounds from me, and I pin him with her expression. “Of course not,” she says, dryly. “You’ve taken a vow to stand by my side for as long as we are burdened with living.”
“You’re right. I have.” His voice exudes confidence. “And he has made you ignore your most basic needs to the point you can no longer recognize when you require rest and reprieve, care and consideration. And it must be difficult to have those of us who know what you need because we care enough to nurse you back to health while refusing to allow you to cave in on yourself.”
He tips his chin as shivers overtake my body. “I will prove that the last thing you need is to be even more detached from me than he has forced you to be.”
“But I need to be able to ward,” I let slip just under my breath. “I cannot restrain him without it.”
“I cannot pretend to understand how you have been using force magic without detection for as long as you have.” He presses his hand over my own. “However, we cannot risk you doing so any further—especially with it working differently than you’re used to in my presence. We cannot risk the potential consequences of experimenting with your abilities. Not in your current state, nor with the way the Emperor is behaving.”
My face falls, and he gently braces my chin with his free hand, encouraging me to look up at him.
“All is not lost,” he assures me. “You have us, and we are going to help you keep him in line until we can execute a plan of extraction.”
“You don’t understand, Varic?—"
“No amount of my understanding is going to remove the pressure you feel to protect the citizens.” His words sink in, heavy and leaden, as a metallic taste spreads over my tongue with the fear of what all of this means for the days ahead of us. “This is something which requires action to be perceived. We have to show you how we mean to support you until we can safely take you somewhere to recover.” His heart rate slows, though it still thrums with relative intensity against my palm, and I derive comfort from it being less than when he first placed my hand over his chest.
Maintaining eye contact, he gently returns my palm to the bed, sparing me a soft smile as he retracts his hand from my chin to turn and lower his legs over the side of the bed. Then my eyes widen, and my jaw drops as I gawk at the new ink adorning his shoulders, a toxic sort of envy filling my abdomen. The amount of work he’s had done since I last saw him shirtless means someone spent a lot of time bent over his body. Touching him.
The new art depicts two Dragons facing each other from opposite shoulder blades, wearing playful expressions as they stare back with their tails entwined in the center of his spine. A mix of symbols I neither recognize nor understand are scattered around the Dragons, with eight thick lines bisected in the center spanning the top of his broad shoulders.
Stomach churning, fingers aching with the nonsensical need to claw the memory from his skin of the sorcerer who had the honor of touching him so intimately—bracing his back with one hand while the other permanently inked these marks beneath his skin—when I want to be the only thing permanently etched in him.
He catches me looking—holding my gaze far longer than he should—and sparks flicker within my limbs.
“No need to be embarrassed, Tasch. You always did prefer my chest to any pillow.”
My mouth clamps shut at his attempt to lift the mood from such an intense topic. I turn and glance at each of my Guards, who all fail at pretending not to be paying close attention to our exchange.
“What’s there to be embarrassed about when you say his name in your sleep most nights, anyway,” Malin says, and my cheeks flame, imagining just how satisfied Varic’s expression would be were I to give in to the urge to look.
