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He looks at me, and I look at him. A criminal without a father, and a son forever trying to please his. Just as we were, and just as we always will be.
I thought I’d known torment until it wrapped around her finger.
stare, unblinking, at the symbol my brother slid onto her finger. It is binding. It is infinite. It is my undoing.
It’s not as though she hadn’t promised to be my ruin, hadn’t already become my demise. She is the single most destructive thing I have ever desired, and yet, it is the diamond on her finger that will destroy me. I watch Paedyn through the gaps of a gawking crowd, just as I will for the rest of my life. I’ll be forced to spend my days at her service but never at her side. In her shadow but never truly seen. In love with a girl I’d have bowed to long before she became my queen.
Why couldn’t we have just stayed in that field of poppies? I would spend the rest of my days making her flower crowns if she wanted to be a queen. My queen. Not Kitt’s. Not Ilya’s. Mine.
“Fix this?” Her laugh is little more than a rasp. “Kai, this is no longer a matter of life or death. This is…” When her breath catches, I know it is the ring she runs trembling fingers over. “This is until death do us part.”
Because she was meant to be the death of me, not the life of another. It was her I was meant to adore in this world and crawl to in the one after. But now she’s tethered to a king, and I am nothing more than her killer.
I tip my face until her forehead meets mine. “I’m too selfish to let you go so easily.”
Powerless. Fatherless. Adena-less. These were the things I was already struggling to survive. And yet, it’s the ring on my finger that may be the death of me.
Paedyn is not a right or a wrong, not something as simple as a yes or a no. She is confusion itself, a feeling unplaced, a color between black and white. Hell, she is my Silver Savior. And hating her is not as simple as it may seem. But for me, it is not loving her that has proven to be difficult.
My heart bangs against my chest, beating for her, beating for every moment we may never get to spend together. And when words finally spill from her lips, she might as well have plunged a dagger into my back like she promised so long ago. “Then I will marry you, Kitt. To save this kingdom from itself.”
“Then I’ll never leave your side.” I give him a look. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” “It’s not promises I care to keep—it’s you.”
“You’re quite the poet, Prince.” Moonlight pools in the dimple that accompanies his grin. “And you the muse, darling.”
I’m tired and hungry, but most of all, I’m thinking of her.
“Where else would I be?” “Your own room, maybe?” “My room doesn’t have you in it.” My lips twitch. “Hence why I’m in yours.”
“You’re not him,” she repeats with a soft smile. “But you have both left very different marks on my heart. One an O, and the other something even more damning.”
Perhaps in another life, I am strong enough to never need proof of it. Perhaps in another life, I am brave enough to confess that I love him. Perhaps in another life, I learn to love him from afar. And that is the most fearless thing of them all.
Perhaps the king really does know how tragically in love I am with his betrothed. Perhaps he is as well.
I am alive. I, an Ordinary, survived a Trial. Again.
need her to come back to me. She is willingly my weakness, and yet, nothing has ever made me stronger. And I fear what I will become if—
Only, it does not matter that every beat of my heart belongs to her. Because she does not belong to me.
“They’re engaged, Kai. You can’t have her.” “Yes, and I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to accept that fact.”
A gray gaze locks with mine, and I can read the relief within it at the sight of me. My body trembles; my throat burns. I ache to fall into his arms. I made it back to him. I lived to spend another day pretending I’m not in love with him.
“Pae.” His voice is ragged. “I would lose my life for you before finding something else worth living for.”
“You are my inevitable. In life and in death.”
I’m breathless at the sight of her, doomed by the hope of having her. It’s a beautiful ruin, a devastating devotion. This girl holds my heart in her hands, could crush it between her fingers and still have me thanking her for the touch. And I hold her shoes.
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.
Nothing and no one has ever devastated me more. Not the sand, the sea, the slow brush of Death’s hand. Because maybe, just maybe, he is the most ruinous thing of them all.
I smile for her, only her, always her.
Her voice is a choked sound as she blinks back a wave of emotions. “Don’t leave me. Please. Especially not now, but please not ever.” “Never,” I whisper, tipping my forehead against hers. Her breath hitches. “You can’t leave me. I don’t have enough room in my heart for the both of you.” I let go of her wrist to cup the face above it instead. “Death himself couldn’t drag me from you.”
“Oh, and Paedyn?” She turns, her long fingers wrapped around the handle. “Don’t fear power. Wield it. Perhaps even let it control you.” The queen smiles sharply. “Being an Ordinary is not what makes you weak. It’s your heart.”
“I’ve missed you, Gray.” “It’s only been a few days of not speaking,” she retorts, moonlight dancing on the ends of her silver hair. “No.” I shake my head, watching her hesitantly step closer. “It was the beginning of the rest of our lives.”
“It seems you’ll make a fine queen.” The diamond on my finger grows heavy. “It’s as though you were born for this.”
“I admire the rose and its thorns. Even the prettiest things can bite.”
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.
“Because you will never know real power. Yours was given. But mine…” I shake my head. “Mine was found.”
I can feel the exact moment my heart shatters. It’s when I turn, my eyes crashing into ones well memorized. When mist meets the deepest sea. When a Shadow faces its Flame. When inevitability meets its end. When I stare into the face of what it is I love most.
This is not an opponent. This is the boy who braids back my hair and dances for the both of us. The boy who would chase me to the ends of the earth if it meant he could hold me one more time. This is a man who would bury another for me—would bury himself, if only I asked. He is a fool for me. He is my fool.
Fight back, Pae. I need you to fight back.
I scream. It’s the sound of my heart shattering. I can feel the drifting shards in my chest, piercing lungs that can no longer draw breath. I’m choking on disbelief, clawing at the slipping strands of a life I wanted with him.
“You’re my cocky bastard”—I force a trembling smile—“you can’t let me win.” His gray eyes blink blearily at me. “Just… just this once.”
My entire body is numb—mind, soul, and shattered heart. I am utterly hollow without his love to fill me.
I am more than his shadow. I am a moth to his flame.
“But I can’t wait for another tragedy. So I’ll tell you now, because fate likely won’t allow us a future. Kai, I—” “I love you.”
“Paedyn, I love you. Like nothing else before, I love you. And I’ve been waiting to tell you since I realized your eyes are my favorite color and your freckles the only constellation worth looking at. I could lie—say that you’ve stolen my every thought and heartbeat like the thief you are, but all of me was already yours. Pae, you are my inevitable.”
“You are my inevitable. In death, and in love.”
“You love me.” “Then.” His hands cup my face. “Now.” My lips brush his. “Always. And I’ll find your shoes for you in every lifetime if you’ll allow it.”
He has always been a prince, always a puppet for power or instrument of Death. But just as constant and formidably fierce, he has been my home.
He is the freedom I cannot grasp. We are inevitable. We are tragedy.
He kisses me, and the world falls quiet. “I love you.” 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.”
