Ruthless Vows (Letters of Enchantment, #2)

by Rebecca Ross

But all good things eventually came to an end. And all songs had a final verse.

There was something she needed to remember, but she couldn’t quite grasp it.

Who are you? There was no answer. There was nothing for him to see, but he felt it again. A small yet unmistakable taunting. That invisible cord, knotted between his ribs. He resisted the pull toward the unknown.

He still wasn’t sure why Dacre had asked him to identify his old typewriter and then secretly given him the other. Unless he doesn’t want me to remember. The thought nearly struck Roman off-balance and he sank into the chair.

I don’t have to know these things, I realize. Perhaps you shouldn’t tell me. But I think I would like to know something about you that no one else does.

He traced his palm with his thumb—he could still feel her touch—and he sensed that Iris was more than a dream.

“I will not fight for you,” he said again. “And you will not win this war. No matter how many of us you turn … we’ll abandon you, eventually. When we remember.”

The remark blistered like skin over fire. Roman was irritated by the gaps in his mind. By trying to weave together all the pieces of himself, only to find endless fragments were still lost.

A loss of life and freedom is imminent, and I cannot bear to stand aside and let it happen. I care about you. The last thing I would ever want is for you to find yourself caught up in what is about to occur.

Those secrets she had been holding like jewels in her hand would be exposed, and it made her feel vulnerable.

She was quitting, and Roman didn’t know what to do, what to say to convince her to stay or why this truly mattered to him. He only knew that he felt most alive when she was near, and he stood before the doors and watched her walk to him.

But despite her relief at having delivered the news in time, Iris still found it hard to quit the room, to follow another stranger, leaving Roman’s letter—burn my words—behind to an unknown fate.

The recognition tore through him like a bullet, and Roman knew he was awake and lucid, even as he stood face-to-face with a dream.

and she wondered if he was remembering her. If there was something about her that called to him. A mortal bond that was stronger than any divine magic.

She nodded, suppressing the urge to throw herself into his arms. To breathe him in. It was tempting to surrender to the past as if they had never been separated, to let those old days pull her under like a tide. But his polite reserve doused that fire. His guarded expression and words … He doesn’t remember me.

He did recognize her, although it seemed pieces were still missing.

“I’ve dreamt of you,” he said. “I think you and I were friends before I left for the war cause.” “Friends?” “Or enemies.” “You and I were never enemies, Kitt. Not exactly.” “Then were we something more?”

The heat of his fingers seeped through her sleeve like sunlight. Iris reveled in the feel of his hand, holding her steady as if she straddled two worlds.

That hand had once caressed her in the darkness, the one and only night they had ever shared together. That hand had once worn a ring, a symbol of their vows, and had typed countless letters to her, words that had fed and comforted and strengthened her. That hand was terribly familiar; she would have known it was him touching her, even if her eyes had been closed.

Roman’s eyes were still dark as he stared up at her, but there was no glint of doubt. No scathing disbelief. There was only the shine of hunger as if Iris had just roused him from a long slumber.

She needed to go, and yet it felt like she was about to tear her heart up by its roots.

“Look at me.” His voice was pitched low. Confident and compelling. The way he had sounded before the war had come between them. “I’ll find you again when the time is right. I swear it.”

Morgie was the name of your pet snail. (I will never grow tired of hearing all your “sad snail stories,” in case you were wondering.) Your middle name is Elizabeth, in honor of your nan. (Hi, E.) Your favorite season is autumn, because that is when you believe magic can be tasted in the air. (You have almost made me a convert.)

But the moment I touched you, I remembered everything. And now I see that all this time, every night when I dreamt, I was trying to bring all the pieces back together. I was trying to find my way back to you.

If you agree to this, write me back. If you don’t agree, still write me back. I want to know your thoughts. I confess that I am hungry for your words.

I also hunger for them, for you, and feel as if I could devour tomes of your writing and never be satiated.

Agreed. Let us dare to change the tides. Write to me and fill my empty spaces.

There is no magic above or below that will ever steal this from me again.

She’s not, he told himself, even as he ground his teeth. I would know if she was dead.

Hold it together. He repeated those words, a framework on which to hang his mind and his body, and bit the inside of his cheek. He laced his fingers behind his back. But there was a scream building in his chest, tearing through his lungs. If she were dead, I would know.

You will regret breaking my bones. You will regret ever taking Iris from my mind. You will release something from my marrow that you will wish you had never touched.

“Like this?” He brushed her knee with his thumb, just beneath her skirt. His touch was soft but possessive, and Iris closed her eyes. “Or this, Iris?” She could feel his fingers caress up her arm and across her shoulder, stopping at the buttons of her blouse. “Yes.” She tilted her head back when she felt his mouth on her throat.

“Write me a story, Kitt,” she whispered, kissing his brow, the hollow of his cheeks. His lips and his throat, until she felt like love was an axe that had cleaved her chest open. Her very heart beating in the air.

“Write me a story where you keep me up late every night with your typing, and I hide messages in your pockets for you to find when you’re at work. Write me a story where we first met on a street corner, and I spilled coffee on your expensive trench coat, or when we crossed paths at our favorite bookshop, and I recommended poetry, and you recommended myths. Or that time when the deli got our sandwich orders wrong, or when we ended up sitting next to each other at the ball game, or I dared to take the train west just to see how far I could go, and you just so happened to be there too.”

“Write me a story where there is no ending, Kitt. Write to me and fill my empty spaces.”

Please, Iris prayed, drawing him closer. Don’t let this be the end. But it made their joining all the sweeter, all the sharper, with skin glistening like dew, with breaths ebbing and flowing, their names turned into ragged whispers. To write the story they both wanted that night. To think it could be their last.

He felt Iris cling to him, and he knew if he didn’t pull away from her that instant, he never would. He would follow her into her flat. He would peel away their damp clothes and lie beside her in bed. He would hold her to his heart and pray the morning never came.

He thought about the birds that had broken their wings, refusing to remain captive.

“I betrayed you,” Roman began, “because I love her.”

“And what a cruel and terrible thing it is, to be a divine with such power and magic, and yet find yourself so small-minded and afraid that you decide to live out your endless days harming others. Instead of letting us choose to love you for the good you could be, you have forced us to serve you by way of pain and terror. That is unforgivable, and a lesson you will have learned too late, when you lose this war against us.

“Oh, I would betray you a hundredfold,” he said, his voice rising. “I would betray you a thousandfold for her.”

Easy, because the sword cut through bone and sinew as if Dacre were nothing more than a cobweb. And hard, because another bruise formed on her heart, marked by the killing.

I hope you know how proud I am of you, and how I think you are brave, returning to the front. I want to tell everyone I pass on the street that you’re my sister. That Iris E. Winnow of the Inkridden Tribune is my sister. Come home soon, Little Flower. I can’t wait to see you again.

Sometimes, she distracted him when he was trying to write, but most of the time, he felt a deep sense of peace and comfort when he was in her presence. When he looked at her, watching her go about simple but lovely everyday tasks. When she sat in her favorite chair by the hearth and read to him in the evenings. When she woke in the mornings—always after him—and when she stole most of the blankets at night. When she came home from the Inkridden Tribune, smelling of newspapers and spilled coffee, full of brilliant ideas. And that, he had come to realize, was when his best words emerged.

When he was with her.