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June 23 - June 23, 2025
Part of me wants to be closer, the rest of me knows I need to stay the hell away—that Rhordyn’s an ocean that would plunge into my lungs and drown me if I fell into him.
Look, I know you think I don’t have much of a life, but I do. And I have things that need tending. There’s just no way I can spend an entire week trapped in my tower. Much as I like it there,” I quickly tack on. “Wonderful view. Fantastic housekeeping service. The stairs are a bit much after a long day, but who am I to complain?”
Honestly, I shouldn’t be in the tower during a storm like this. I might get electrocuted. Anyone in their right mind would agree my actions are entirely justified.
You’re going to be the death of me.” “So long as you take me with you,” is my strangled reply, and for a fleeting moment even the rain seems to hang in the sky, as if the world is sucking a gasp through parted lips. “Never.”
He sweeps his arms around and locks us together, pulling me closer. “Have I told you lately that you’re my very best friend?” “You have,” he rumbles, fingertips brushing up and down the length of my spine like the sweep of a paintbrush, decorating me with his affection. “And nobody can ever take that away.” Moments pass with us wound together in peaceful ease, his tender embrace making me feel a little more whole. “Orlaith ...”
That conversation exposed me—wedged a stick of guilt deep within my conscience. Because I survived a Vruk attack despite my tender age and was gifted a cushioned life, sat high and dry in my pretty tower while the world crumbled around me. Yes, I suffer every time I close my eyes, but I’m the lucky one. I’m the one who got to live. But what’s that life worth if it’s at the cost of others?
your tower may be high, but you of all people should know it’s usually the tallest flowers that get targeted with a pair of clippers,” he says with callous precision. “I figured you’d appreciate the heads up.”
What I want, what I need, and what is right are three entirely different things ...
You want a fairy tale?” he spits, waving it in my face. “I’m your fucking fairy tale. I’m nailed to your soul, Orlaith, and believe me when I tell you there is no happily ever after. Not for me, and certainly not for you.”
My fist tightens around the chain as I steal a glimpse of the woman in the mirror ... She’s a masterpiece; the most exquisite rose given shape and life and a fluttering heartbeat. She’s the sun and the soil and light that bathes the world on a beautiful day. She’s broken, lonely, and hiding from her past. But it’s hard to keep hiding when I’m staring at the unveiled truth. The shape of my eyes ...
A shackle or a ticket to free me from a cage I never realized I was living in? I’m not sure. I don’t know anything anymore. It’s hard to tell truth from lie when you’ve spent the majority of your life living under a veil of skin that never belonged to you.
Red-hot, burning shame, because this dress has made something abundantly clear ... I’ve sold my body.
More retreating steps, until all that’s left are me and Rhordyn, a felled horse, and this frigid tension I want to shatter.
I freeze, all my fight dissipating as if one tiny movement could impale me with a deadly strike. “These right here?” he rumbles, tapping my ribs with the tips of his fingers. “We’re both tucked beneath them. Stuck in this fragile cage together.” “Then break out,” I plead. “Set me free, Rhordyn!”
He pillaged my weakness. Offered me a drink from his well and I gulped with greedy draws until I was intoxicated and mindless. Then, he tossed me down the hole and left me there with no way out. Now all I can do is drown.
Perhaps that’s what he was waiting for when he pulled that sword from Mishka’s heart. For the pain to make me wither. But death plants a seed in you, and my insides are already littered with shoots I can’t seem to hide from.
I make it almost to the wall before I vomit, the spill of water and bile having nothing to do with my almost drowning and everything to do with my sudden wave of vertigo from the fall. Because I’m no longer standing on the edge of that chasm deep in the folds of my subconscious. I’m down in the guts of it, trying to claw my way out with desperate, bloody fingers.
Trying to escape the slew of ebony roots coiled in a sizzling slumber—the pile larger than life itself. An oily blackness spilling out in vicious, torrential spears. Burning. Silencing. I vomit again, my body repelling the septic revelation it’s being forced to swallow ... It was me.
Did my subconscious create my Safety Line as a way to cage me in? Perhaps it considered me best kept isolated should I lose control again?
A laugh bubbles out as he studies the deep, crescent wound punched through my wrist. “What did you do, leave him a doggy dish full of blood?” The fact that he worked that out so fast is a little concerning.
My eyes flick up, stare landing on the dense, black smudge protruding from the cliff like a grisly diadem.
