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Waiting for someone to come for her. No one ever did.
It was like coming home and finding all the comfort it had once offered torn apart, the beauty flensed, everything once familiar peeled off into ruin.
“Why don’t you die?” There was no point in being coy. She wanted to kill him; they both knew it. Blood was still flowing down the hilt of the knife, dripping scarlet across the white marble floor, spattering across the ouroboros mosaic. His lips curved into an insincere smile. “Prior commitments, I’m afraid.”
“Prior commitments” 😭😭
“Ferron always comes for me,” she whispered.
😭😭
“Well, you—you have a natural talent for it. In another life, you could be a healer.”
“Do you think they’ll still hire me after I murdered someone in the lobby?”
She’d thought sometimes that someday, when she’d repaid her debts, accomplished all that was expected, and reached her own goals, she would like to be loved.
“No one is going to hurt your baby,” he said, meeting her eyes. She gave a small gasp of relief. It was what she’d so desperately wanted him to say.
“I have warned you, if something happens to you, I will personally raze the Eternal Flame. That isn’t a threat. It is a promise. Consider your survival as much a necessity to the Resistance as Holdfast’s. If you die, I will kill every single one of them.”
Becoming a healer would slowly carve away Helena’s life span, like a candle being burned at both ends.
“I swear it, on the spirits of the five gods and my own soul, Kaine Ferron, I’m yours as long as I live.” It was only after she’d spoken that she thought about the other vows she’d made in her life. All the contradictory things she’d promised. She’d have to find a way to reconcile them somehow.
they acted like baby birds, waiting passively, heads gaping, expecting her to hurry over and stuff the relevant knowledge inside. Being proactive or looking for answers themselves never seemed to occur to them, always waiting to be told what to learn or do.
“You’re like a rose in a graveyard,” he said, and his lips twisted into a bitter smile. “I wonder what you could have turned into without the war.”
They were the inverse and counter to each other.
A healer and killer, circling slowly, the push and pull inexorable.
“Everyone wanted a lot for me, and I’m not sure I ever knew what I wanted.”
“You have an interesting intuition. I may have underestimated it,” he finally said. “I can’t say I’ve ever thought much of vivimancy. However—you do the Eternal Flame credit.”
Women were always defined by the lowliest thing they could be called.
“You don’t get to lie to me and then get angry when I make the mistake of believing you,”
She’d slipped through his walls and peeled away the defensive layers of malice and cruelty, and found that there he carried a broken heart. She could use that.
Just servitude and I’ll get to continue this delightful existence of mine so long as I’m more useful alive than dead? That’s so generous. How could I possibly refuse?”
The Ferrons were possessive enough to eat themselves alive before they’d let go of anything they considered theirs.
“Perhaps someday, if I have time again, I can make you a list of all the things that apologies don’t fix.”
She was a collar around Kaine’s neck, and her job now was to bear it.
“I’m sure there’s something poetic in it all, but right now all I feel is a new set of manacles.”
You don’t get to push everyone away so that they’ll feel comfortable using you and letting you die.”
“You are not required to make your death convenient. You are allowed to be important to people. The reason I’m here—the reason I’m doing any of this—is to keep you alive. To keep you safe. That was the deal.”
Kaine Ferron was a dragon, like his family before him. Possessive to the point of self-annihilation.
“You’re mine. You swore yourself to me. Now and after the war. I’m going to take care of you. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. You don’t have to be lonely. Because you’re mine.”
She was locked in the dangerous embrace of Kaine Ferron, and it felt like home.
“You’re mine. I’ll always come for you.” He always did.
Calculating, Cunning, Devoted, Determined, Ruthless, Unfailing, Unhesitating, and Unyielding.
There are no civilians in a war like this. If they win”—she spread her hands—“everyone loses.”
Everything I do feels like I’m delaying the inevitable, saving someone one day so they’ll die in a worse way tomorrow. I wish I’d never become a healer.”
“Because I have warned you, if something happens to you, I will personally raze the entire Order of the Eternal Flame. That isn’t a threat, it’s a promise. Consider your survival as much a necessity to the Resistance as Holdfast’s. If you die, I will kill every single one of them. Given that the risk to their lives is the only way to make you value your own.”
“Love isn’t as pretty or pure as people like to think. There’s a darkness in it sometimes. Kaine and I go hand in hand. I made him who he is. I knew what that array meant when I saved him. If he’s a monster, then I’m his creator.”
She was a non-active member of the Order of the Eternal Flame and did not fight.
😭😭😭
