“If you stand by the fire, we can explain that Tasch is warming herself if anyone comes in,” Fray suggests.
Varic nods with the need to expel something, and he pulls me toward the crackling fire with an urgency reserved for something life-threatening.
The tightness in my throat threatens to steal my voice as his hand relaxes and allows mine to return to my side. It feels as if he has drifted away, even though he’s standing so close that the heat claiming my body is not from the fireplace alone.
My pulse pounds as I stare back at Varic, with the need for him to say something or else my veins may not hold against this onslaught of anticipation. Though if he doesn’t start speaking, I have some words of admonishment to share about what exactly occurred back there in the ballroom.
“I couldn’t look away.” He drops his gaze, and my heart squeezes with the need for him to come back to me. “Every part of me was screaming in agony.”
I open my mouth when he leans closer, distracting me with a shake of his head, seemingly in disagreement with the words he’s just spoken. “I’m sorry. I’m acting like such a coward, making you stand here and listen to me complain when you’re the one who was forced to—” His voice breaks, and he pauses. “Forced to dance with the Prince against your will.”
“No.” My tone is more forceful than I meant it, yet the spark behind his irises means I’m not wrong to show him my passion. “Saying what scares you, naming what hurts you, is the very definition of bravery.” My hand seeks him, reaching, forgetting that we are no longer in a tent so isolated from the rest. Failing to remember the Emperor can burst in to find us like this.
His eyes cast down to my hand, hovering awkwardly in the space between our bodies, as I snatch it back to clasp with the other. “It is brave to feel fear and anger and refuse to run from its source. And I think it is especially courageous to be so filled with longing and loss, yet maintain your promise. To be there for me—even when it hurts worse than any injury. To ensure I feel both safe and comfortable, simply from knowing you would never let anything happen.”
He stares back with so many emotions swirling behind his irises, showing me what my words have unleashed inside him. Then he lunges forward and closes the distance until his forehead nearly rests over my own, leaving nothing but a sliver of air between us.
“Do you have any idea how torturous it was to watch you be forced to dance with him?” His eyes dart around my features. “Knowing that I could not cut in? That I am unable to ever ask for your hand, except when the Emperor commands? And even then, only for their entertainment. Never for your own enjoyment. Never because you have requested I be the one…” His voice breaks along with my heart, and I offer him all of my attention, needing him to know I hear him, I want him, pain and all.
“I do.” His face falls, and I continue, “Because I felt the same, helplessly watching as you needed to harm yourself. Knowing you were experiencing so much turmoil that you had to scar your own flesh. I couldn’t bear it.” I drop my gaze to his hips and back, staring with intent until my magic thrums with the shame inside his chest, and I regret it, because he has nothing to be ashamed of. It is not his fault he must maim himself to survive the cruelty of His Majesty.
He strokes featherlight stripes on the underside of my wrist. “I’m sorry,” he barely whispers. “I was overcome.” His eyes lose focus, and my chest constricts because I know that look. The one he wears when his mind has been lost to time again. “I couldn’t control my magic enough to ward. I couldn’t risk what I did?—”
The need to comfort him proves stronger than the grasp on my own hand as I press my finger to the center of his lips and pull whatever he has left of his focus.
With a subtle shake of my head, I communicate that we need to wait. To give time and space for this younger part of him—the one still encapsulated in memory—to recognize that time has passed and those soldiers have all been laid to rest.
I wait as long as he needs in remembrance of how his pain has been acknowledged, contained, and understood, as well as something so nebulous could be. For the sorcerer he is today to remember it is okay to move forward and live. For the moment when the light that is him—when that impossible brightness I hate to see dimmed—emits from behind the ever-shifting tones in his irises, in proof that he has come back to me.
That unexplained tether between us thrums, alerting me when his guilt finally fades, and the fear slinks away, down to the deepest recesses we created for this very purpose.
A new spark ignites behind his eyes, and his jaw flexes as I finally remember to drop my hand from his lips. I suck in a greedy breath filled with his warm spice scent, enveloping me like the heat from his body.
“Do you have any idea what sort of torment it is to have to watch another sorcerer touch you? To have to stand still and trace the way he places his hands all over your body?” His eyes study me while a renewed sense of heat flares beneath my cheeks. “Do you have any way of imagining what it felt like to witness another sorcerer be granted the freedom to hold you? To have to do nothing while he placed his hands all over your form without ever asking what you preferred, or how you felt about it?” His gaze lowers, scorching a line down the center of my chest.
“Do you have any idea how difficult it was, knowing I could not say a word while I painstakingly studied his every movement, ensuring he did not hurt you or take advantage of you in any way that would warrant me a reason to intervene? Hoping that he would be respectful, yet watching as he grabbed you, moved you, and caressed your skin without your consent?” His voice cracks over the last few words.
“To track every placement of his fingers while he groped you. Painting stripes of envy over your hips.” His eyes drop as I swallow, wishing he would show me where he means. “And jealousy in the small of your waist.” His tongue darts out and licks his lower lip as he stares down the narrow space between us. “And rage over the curve of your lower back.” Flames flicker behind his eyes, reminding me of that roiling inferno which burnt so brightly the night he admonished Drusilla for her cruel treatment.
“Do you know what it took for me to remain in place and keep from blasting my magic at the Prince to tear him off you? How difficult it was to keep from storming across the floor and ripping him away when he pressed his hips into yours? Or when he pulled you so close the front of your body became flush with his own?” His chest heaves with his next breath. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to watch as he firmly molded himself around every curve?” His eyes trace over all that he can see of me as I shake my head, eyes widening as he seems to interpret the motion as an invitation to further explain his meaning.
“It is the hardest thing I have ever had to do,” he rasps, turning away to rake his fingers through his hair. “It has been nothing but torture to stand by and watch as others place their hands all over you, knowing I am powerless to say a thing because of how much danger I would put you in were I to stalk over and claim you as I ache to do.” His fist clenches between us, held so close his knuckles brush the tie of my robe. “That I can’t take you by the hand and claim you.” His eyes lock on mine with an intensity I’ve never seen from him. “To make sure everyone, in every corner of the Continent, knows that they cannot have you. That they cannot touch you or use you however they see fit. Because you are mine, and I will not allow it.”
My pulse thrums with the recognition of this exact sort of torment, yearning for him to be able to do exactly what he says. Wanting nothing more than for the sorcerer baring his soul to me to have the freedom to claim me publicly. Regardless of the fact that I have done nothing but disdain the Emperor for doing the same. Though it isn’t identical, because Varic’s claim of me is welcome. With the way he would ensure no one else could ever force me to do anything. He knows that I want him—I want this—and he would have my utmost consent.
“I want that, too.”
A flicker of something lights within his expression as our chests rise and fall, pressing together with every harried breath.
“Then can you imagine how much it hurts to do nothing every time they mistreat you—especially when that tyrant commands you to perform terrible acts which eat you alive every moment afterward?” His eyes fall closed, and his forehead drops closer.
“I always knew he wouldn’t give you the respect you deserve, and yet—I am so sorry, Tasch. I never imagined he would treat you so horrifically. I am sorry that I was naïve enough to trust he would see even half of the value I recognize in you.” He presses his knuckles to the center of his lips, and his eyes fill with so much anguish I swear I could end the Emperor for putting him through this. “It’s killing me, Tasch—to watch you die a slow, painful death by his command.”
“And I am sorry, Varic. I tried to keep you from ever having to know this pain. I tried to force him to change his mind when he first appointed you, but he caught on to what I was doing, and I couldn’t risk manipulating him further. Then I failed to convince you to refuse it once you stepped upon the dais.”
He presses forward, aligning our bodies while resting his forehead against my own. “I need you to understand, I would have made this vow to you before they ever approved me to return for duty.” I nod, allowing him to feel my understanding as it gently rocks his head with my movement. “I would have taken the vow when you were supporting me through my healing.” My eyes must flare wide, as his mirror the same. “I would have made this vow to you every day of every year they forced us apart.” His hand lifts to raise my chin, tilting my lips up as if to press a kiss to them.
His eyes shift, indicating something I cannot read. “If I had been given the choice, I would have made this vow to you long before now, and nothing—not even your magic at the height of its power—could have stopped me.”
