Tears pool along my lashes, and no amount of blinking gives me a reprieve from needing to witness the pain rioting within him, calling to me with the sharp sting of rejection making its way through our connection, feeling as intense as I would expect him to feel had the whole of the Continent shunned him. How one might experience being forced to live alone in the forest where it isn’t likely you could last a whole minute without the protection of others.
Yet it is only me and my refusal to engage with him in this moment, which should not feel so harmful, proving the fact he still feels too much for me. I should not be able to affect him so powerfully. Not in how he stares back at me with that haunted quality.
The same which dwells within me.
My vision clears, and I see all of him. Needing less. Needing to break free of this.
I yank my arm forward in a vain attempt to free it, but he merely tightens his grip. Pain erupts beneath his hold as he fails to recognize his own strength, again.
Never knowing when to stop, and since he will not release me, I send him a wave of anxiety.
Dark tendrils infiltrate his chest, shifting something within his gaze until it is positively scorching—indicating he knows what I’m doing—yet he still refuses to concede.
So I send dark red tendrils of fear spiraling straight into his heart.
“Don’t.” His voice is gritty as his jaw muscles tick, and he tightens his grip again.
I lean into the pressure and goad him. Good. Leave your mark. Show me how our Empire has hurt you, Varic.
Give me your anger. Bruise my flesh. I promise I can take it. Just like you have.
I pull on every bit of fear I have absorbed over the last two days and transfer it to him—a reminder of how much he can contain without realizing it—having seen him at his worst.
“I won’t need to once you let me go,” I snarl back at him.
“Hey.” Fray’s hand lands on Varic’s shoulder. “She said to let her go.”
“Or what, you’re going to fly off with me?” Varic scoffs, side-eyeing Fray.
“Something like that,” Fray promises, stepping to his leader’s side.
Varic’s brows knit together as his fist opens, and Malin’s satisfied grin is all the explanation I need to know exactly what happened.
Varic rubs his knuckles. “Are you so afraid of me?”
My heart lurches at his eyes filled with mourning.
Anger builds inside my chest, a culmination of all we have been made to do as servants, at the circumstances forcing us together in this dance of wills. So consumed with rage, she speaks for me. “Are you so incapable of recognizing your own strength?”
My words are an arrow, his heart the target.
She falls back, leaving me to repair what she wrecked.
Varic’s face falls, pale and stricken.
Lars knocks Fray away from Varic’s side and puffs out his chest to press forward into his newly appointed leader’s.
“Apologize,” Lars commands.
Varic’s eyes fall closed and he sighs, stepping back, chest rising and falling dramatically.
The rest of my Guard’s attention vacillates, glancing from me to Varic, then scanning the area.
Varic turns to me with his posture returning to its natural fluidity.
Tears threaten, and I tear my gaze away, because no matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to separate who he was with who he must be to me now. And forevermore.
“Tasch.” His voice is gentle and cautious, only dropping my title because no one else can hear it.
