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‘What sort of name is Terrence for a bird of prey, anyway?’ he asked, not taking his eyes off them. Adrienne chuckled. ‘Drue’s had him since he was a hatchling,’ she offered. ‘And when he first broke through that egg, he looked like a cranky old man – worse than Fendran and Baledor combined —’
Whether it’s regular or Naarvian, when it comes to life and death, steel is steel and we’ll use it as needed. Some stupid law created by a stupid man in a distant territory makes no difference in a fallen kingdom. There are no rules here.’
Smiling, he offered it to her – the heart of a wraith. ‘I considered flowers, but I thought you’d like this more…’
‘It’s truly the only way to kill a wraith, isn’t it?’ she breathed in wonder. ‘Yes,’ he told her. ‘Perhaps it’ll be mine you hold one day…’ A smile tugged at her lips. ‘Perhaps I’ll carve it out for myself.’
‘Luck be with you, sister.’ Drue gave her friend an extra squeeze. ‘Not if he’s been with you first.’
‘If you need words of comfort, perhaps remember this: there are all kinds of darkness in this world. Some good, some bad, and some with no agenda at all. It’s what that darkness means to you and what you do with it yourself that matters most.’
Sometimes, to love someone, we have to let them go. And that sometimes, in order to go where we need to, we must turn away from one path, onto another…’
Gods, he wanted her. Had wanted her from the moment she’d threatened to carve out his heart on the northern perimeter. There was no need for that now – she already held it in her hands. It belonged to her.
‘Touch her again,’ he said, leaning in, crushing Coltan to the wall behind him, ensuring the punishing grip mirrored his words. ‘And you die.’
There had always existed a magic to make the sanest man go mad, and it was not shadows and darkness, but love: deep, unending love. As Drue kissed Talemir, slowly and thoroughly, he realised that. He loved her and all that she was. And what she was… was everything. She was the glowing beacon in the harbour of obsidian. She was the flicker of flame that met his shadows. And he loved her. He’d suspected it before. He’d danced around the edge of the feeling, but now… now he knew.
‘Since the moment I met you, I have felt like I was soaring. With you there is no ground beneath my boots, no rail to hold on to, and for a time there, I fought it with all my might… But no more. I’ve let go. And Wildfire, it’s more than I could have ever imagined. With you, I didn’t fall in love. I rose amid it, stronger than ever before.’ Talemir took a trembling breath, baring his soul like he never had. ‘I love you against all reason.’ Drue stared at him, her fingers loose in his. ‘If it’s not enough,’ he managed, bowing to unsheathe the dagger in his boot and, on one knee, pressing it
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Love didn’t happen once, she realised. It happened every day, in little moments, in the quiet gaps between grand words, in the lingering touches, in the hope it promised in the dark. Love was something that breathed and expanded, that was made and remade, again and again, reforged only to become stronger.
‘We take our happiness when and where we can. I’m glad you found yours, even if it’s in the middle of a storm of darkness.’
‘I know you have lived in the shadows of the wraiths for far too long, that you have fought the darkness valiantly, tirelessly. I cannot promise you songs of victory, but I can vow that we will meet darkness with darkness, that my shadows are your shield and I will wield them upon the enemy with the same wrath you feel in your veins, for I feel it too.’
‘The darkness took a lot from me…’ Drue kissed him soundly, desire already reawakening within. ‘But it also gave me you.’
