Brimstone (Fae & Alchemy, #2)

by Callie Hart

I lost the parts of myself that knew how to feel anything other than pain and sorrow centuries ago. But for better or worse, you have brought me back to life.”

“Come now, Osha. Where else would an acolyte kneel to worship but at the altar of his god?”

don’t know! It was weird, not being able to see anything. Closing them helped.” He was the strangest male. “Okay. Sure. That makes perfect sense,” I said.

We create all the wonders of this realm just by being present to witness them, and it’s always magic that lights the way.

“Are you in love with her?” He let his head drop, laughing quietly as he pulled out a chair at the table and sank down heavily in it. Stretching his legs out in front of himself, he rested his hands on his stomach, one on top of the other, and looked up to meet my gaze. “No,” he said simply. And then, immediately, “Yes?” Heat flared up inside me, making my throat close. “It’s not a simple thing, Fisher. She’s… well…” “Spectacular,” I whispered. The smile that spread across his face was sad. “Right. Exactly. She always has been. When other people are full of the kind of fire that burns inside her, it eats them alive. It hollows them out until there’s nothing left inside them but the fire. They burn everyone around them with it, until all that remains is scorched earth. But not Saeris. Her fire keeps others warm in the cold dark. It is her strength, not her weakness. Being around her reminds you that you’re alive.”

I love Saeris Fane, because she’s electric, and fierce, and loyal, and being around her brings the world back into focus. But I’m not in love with her, Fisher. I tried. But my heart was just too full of sorrow to make room for her.”

Thank the gods, I chanted in my head. Thank the fucking gods. Don’t thank them, came Fisher’s low, resonant reply. Thank me. I’m the one who’s about to make you scream.

I could be dead in the ground five thousand years and the frosts could have taken my bones, and still no other male will ever have loved another female the way that I love you.”

My prince of shadows. I had been born into the light, but my salvation had been waiting for me in the dark.

“Dreams are just vapor and smoke,” I said. “They mean nothing unless you’re willing to live them.

“I shouldn’t tell you this, since you seem blissfully unaware of the power you hold over me, but… I will give you whatever you want, Saeris Fane. Always. No matter what it costs me.”

“We believe that animals are too pure for this life. They are all ascended beings who live in the after. Everything is perfect there. No pain or misfortune or heartbreak. But sometimes, they peer beyond the veil between this life and the next, and they see us here in the depths of our suffering, and they choose someone. One soul they want to help over any other. They come to us as… dear friends”—he cleared his throat—“when we need them most.

“It feels like trying to make sand flow backward in an hourglass. It feels like being surrounded by people and being the only one who can’t find the air in the room. It’s drowning on dry land. It’s the hollow ache of something that you know, from that moment on, will always be missing. It is a pain so acute and incurable that poets, pirates, and politicians alike die from it. And it never ends.”