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There’s no one left for you to save.” He turned away, his expression venomous.
She looked up at him. “You’re a monster.” He raised an eyebrow. “Noticed that, have you?”
The idea was that by placing a man’s seed in a cucurbit with the proper environment of stable warmth, it could come to life on its own. After being fed distilled blood, it could grow into a human of limitless alchemical potential and utterly without flaws because it was unspoiled by the inferior environment and contributions of a female womb—the source of all humanity’s flaws.
It had been viewed as a fact of nature. Men were of Sol, active, hot and dry, full of vitality, and the source of life’s seed. Women, it followed, were an inferior human form. Wet and cold, passively bound to the monthly cycle of Luna, the lesser moon. While their bodies were the necessary vessels for birth, it was their blood that was the source of all defects. Both vivimancy and necromancy were regarded as a corruption of resonance caused by a “poisonous womb.”
“Ferron always comes for me,” she whispered.
He placed his hand over hers, their fingers aligning, and she could dimly feel his resonance through her own fingertips before it cut off at her wrists.
“How did you know I’d be able to fix my eye?” “You were a healer.” “Yes, but…” Her voice faded. She was unable to explain why she felt dissatisfied with the answer. “Where did you learn to heal?” she asked, thinking back not only on how easily he’d imitated her directions but also how he’d dealt with Aurelia, and repaired the nerve damage on his own. “Well, you see, there was a war, and I was a general. Picked up a few things.” A headache was developing in Helena’s temples from her imbalanced vision. “Well, you—you have a natural talent for it. In another life, you could be a healer.” “One of
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“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.”
Anyone who studied metallurgy knew that silver and iron were incompatible metals. They couldn’t be alloyed. Silver was a noble metal, however, which would have placed the wife above her husband in station if not fortune.
“Don’t die, Marino. I might miss you.”
“I must admit,” he said in a low voice as though making a confession, “if anyone had told me you’d become so lovely, I would never have come near you. I was rather blindsided when I saw you again.” Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “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.”
“If you don’t want me to kiss you, you should say so now,” he said.
Women were always defined by the lowliest thing they could be called.
THIS
He was hers.
🥺
“I’m sure there’s something poetic in it all, but right now all I feel is a new set of manacles.”
🤭
“You are not replaceable,” he said, his hands trembling against her shoulders. “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.” He searched her face. “They didn’t tell you.”
“Helena…” She stilled at her name. “I’m alone, too,” he said. A lump rose in her throat, her heart pounding. “But I don’t want to hurt you, you don’t deserve—” He kissed her, swallowing her objections.
“You’re mine,” he said against her lips, his fingers sliding along her throat, tangling in her hair, holding her fast as he dragged her nearer. It was not like the previous night. It wasn’t comfort. It was claiming.
He pulled her close, crushing her to his chest. “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.”
“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.”
“I’ve never gotten to tell anyone about you. I’d want someone to know what you were like.”
I left a note. Didn’t you get my note? I love you.”
“I love you. You left, and I’d never told you.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to choose. I always have to choose, and I never get to choose you. I’m so tired of not getting to choose you.” He looked back at her. “You’re not choosing. You promised me anything I wanted. I want you to stop breaking yourself trying to save me. Go. Live. Tell our daughter I saved you both. That—is what I want.”
“Which of us has hands steady enough to build a bomb?”
He held her face in his hands. “Helena, look at you. You have broken yourself into pieces, over and over, because of me, and you don’t seem to understand that it kills me. Living is not worth it to me if you’re the one who keeps paying the price for it. Let me fix what I can.”
“We said always, didn’t we?” she asked, her voice strained. “Always. Well, if you don’t want that promise in full any longer, I’ll give it to you in increments.” She clutched his hand tighter. “Every day. I’ll choose you. That way you’ll know it’s still what I want.” She looked out towards the rising sea. “I’m sure there will be good days and bad days for us. Too much has happened to ever really put it behind us, but if you choose me, and I choose you, I think we’re strong enough to make it.”
“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.”
