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“Are you such a powerful air mage that you need only air to eat?” Naime raised her eyebrow and popped the bread into her mouth. No soldier she had ever known would so boldly tease a noble, let alone a princess. He was arrogant, or something more than a soldier. Perhaps both. Why was he hiding it? “Air. And men’s tears,” she said.
A title that someone else bestows upon you does not make it more or less true. You,” he said, “are a queen as I had never dared to hope might exist.”
“You are such a child,” she managed, “Makram.” She had not meant to say his name with a breathy sigh, nor let him realize she was staring at his mouth. Nor did she mean to let her thoughts wander to what it might be like to be kissed by someone. Someone she was drawn to, someone who was not just kissing her for the benefit of others, as she suspected any future husband might. Would he want to kiss her? “No,” he said, his voice taking on a purr that did not aid her in the least, “I am a man.”
“All magic is beautiful,” she said, “and terrible. Do you not see the beauty in yours, or the terror in mine?” Her fingers brushed his cheek. “You can stop a heart, and I can stop your breath.”
No one had ever written in any history book that a destruction mage’s kisses might be just as devastating as their magic.
“If I let go“—Naime sucked in a shaking breath—”we will spend this time picking up all my broken pieces.” “I want them,” Makram said. “I can help you carry them.”
They were a swirling, ever-changing harmony, his peace for her tempest, his restlessness for her calm, his recklessness for her planning, her independence for his loyalty. Night and day, dusk and dawn, the end, and the beginning.
“Don’t bear it. Let it go. It’s broken, let it be broken,” he said. “You have to let the broken go, so you can begin again. That is the cycle, isn’t it? Winter to spring. Death to life, old to new.” “I won’t be able to put it back together,” Naime said into her hands, which were fisted against his chest, her head resting next to them. “Let go of it.” He hugged her tighter, and tendrils of his magic encircled her, shadow and smoke, whispering about rest and peace. “Break,” he commanded. “I’ve got you.”
“I have missed you like a drowning man misses air,”
You helped me to reveal my pain and failures as a favor.” “No.” He gripped her waist, pulling her forward and stroking her with his gaze. “I wanted them. Every single one. I wanted you to unleash yourself on me, so that you are mine, your secrets and hurts mine to keep and guard.”
“A stray?” His eyebrows lifted. “Not a terrifying death mage? Not a foreign prince? Not a commander of armies?” “Those things too. But you always seemed a little lost.” She reached to touch his freshly shaven jaw. His lids lowered at the touch, an edge coming over his expression. “I was,” he said. “No longer?” Her voice dipped. He shook his head, twice in slow motion. “I have found a light to guide me.”
