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“If you want me to fight you, I won’t, Paedyn. I told you in that field of poppies how I would never do that again. That when I lay a hand on you, it would only ever be in a caress.” Raindrops drip from his lashes, but he doesn’t dare blink as he murmurs, “And I plan to keep that vow.”
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My gaze trails up to the letter I know to be carved above her heart. Her palm finds my face in a gentle caress. “You’re not him.” Those three words threaten to shatter me to pieces.
I love you. I open my mouth, but it’s her strained voice I hear. “Don’t. Not yet.” She blows out a breath, her fingers brushing down the length of my cheek. “Every person who has ever said that to me is gone. And I… I need you more than I need those words.”
In return, I remind her that Paedyn Gray has been my weakness since that very first dinner before the Purging Trials.
So I say his name instead, as if I could claim him so easily. As if I’m not thinking of three damning words when I say it. I love you.
I do this for her. Every dance. Every smile. She seems so much more alive away from Ilya, away from the reminder of everything she is not. But out here, even surrounded by Elites, we are all at the mercy of the sea. I think she finds comfort in that. So I spin her in the moonlight. Smile when she laughs at my expense. And let her step on my toes.
I let go of her wrist to cup the face above it instead. “Death himself couldn’t drag me from you.”
You think I would not beg to run away with you? My duty may be to the king, but my heart, Pae, is wherever you are. It is in the palm of your hands, the pad of your thumb. So if you leave, I will follow. If you stay, I will bow. Because there has never been a moment when you did not own the only piece of me that mattered—loving you made me matter. And I ache to be full again.
falling. “I am power earned, not gifted. I became one of you. Observant enough to pose as a Psychic, strong enough to survive your Trials. Over and over, I have proved myself worthy of your loyalty. “But I have faced far worse things than my own powerlessness.”
arms, devoted in his gaze. “Are you sure, Pae?” I smile up at him, having never been so sure of anything in my life. “Yes,” I answer softly. “Tonight will be our forever.”
And when the dress slips from my skin, leaving only the rain to clothe me, he seems to whisper into my very soul. “You are my forever.” Shadow and Flame. Formidably inevitable. “Forever my undoing.”
But I do thank the Plague. I whisper my gratitude for it when you are sound asleep in my arms, when your fingers flick the tip of my nose. In the quiet moments, I thank the Plague for you. If it weren’t for the dividing of Ordinaries and Elites so many years ago, I would have never found my way to you. My coins are always at risk in your presence, but no saving of my life would have been necessary that day. No Silencers. No Purging Trials. No stolen moments under the willow. When I thank the Plague, it is not for the power it has gifted me, but for the privilege of you. Nothing makes me
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my heart simply cannot handle this.
He is beautiful. The thought isn’t a surprise. And yet, I’m unable to tear my gaze from him. Such stoic strength seeps from him like the shadow clinging to his heels. This is a boy who has known little more than hardship his whole life, wounded by the man who raised him and left by the brother who loved him.
When Kai stops before me, I look down into the soup of oats speckled with fruit. He can’t see my smile. “You added blueberries.” “It pained me greatly.” “Your bravery is inspiring,” I croon.
I stand beside the willow’s mighty trunk, beside my brother and sister. I’m swallowed in the swaying branches, lost in a tangle of slender leaves. It is only me, and the ghost of those I love, awaiting Paedyn beneath the willow. She, too, steps into our future alone, but not entirely.
She is my dream. She is my piece of paradise. She is my inevitable.
