Divine Rivals (Letters of Enchantment, #1)

by Rebecca Ross

he began to see the invisible threads that drew him to Iris. It didn’t feel like fate; Roman didn’t quite believe in such fancies. But it certainly felt like something.

“There is always a choice. Are you going to let your father write your story, or will you?”

And when you find something good? You hold on to it. You don’t waste time worrying about things that won’t even matter in the end. Rather, you take a risk for that light. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

To find and name what lurks within you. Relief, shame, admiration, sadness, hope, encouragement, dread, faith. And why such things are there in your bones, when you’ve yet to give yourself up to something so selfless. It’s wondering what tomorrow will bring. What the next hour will bring. What the next minute will bring. Time suddenly feels sharper than a knife grazing your skin, capable of cutting you at any moment.

“Do you think it’s possible to fall in love with a stranger?” Iris asked. “Like love at first sight?” “Not exactly. More like loving someone you’ve never met. Someone whose name you don’t even know but who you have a connection with.”

He would soon be married to a girl who had no interest in knowing him. Her heart belonged elsewhere, and he’d never know what it would feel like to be loved by her.

Roman stood in the sunshine and read every word of her article. He forgot where he was, where he was standing. Where he was going. Where he had just come from. He forgot everything when he read her words, and a smile crept over his face when he reached the end.

I don’t think you realize how strong you are, because sometimes strength isn’t swords and steel and fire, as we are so often made to believe. Sometimes it’s found in quiet, gentle places. The way you hold someone’s hand as they grieve. The way you listen to others. The way you show up, day after day, even when you are weary or afraid or simply uncertain.

I’m growing fond of him. I’ve told him things that I’ve never said to anyone else.”

She stared at the boy in the field; she stared at him as if she were dreaming. But then the truth shivered through her. She would know that handsome face anywhere. It was Roman Confounded Kitt. Her hands went cold. She couldn’t move as the seconds continued to pass and she realized he was this close to her and yet so far away, walking in a field.

She kept her eyes on Roman as the distance began to wane between them, and she pushed herself to run faster, faster, until it felt like her bones might melt from the exertion.

His hands reached for her as she reached for him, and the stillness broke when they touched, as if they had cracked the world. She took hold of his jumpsuit and used all of her momentum to push him to the ground. He wasn’t expecting it and she easily unbalanced him. The impact was jarring; Iris bit her tongue as they tangled together in the long grass, his body warm and firm beneath hers. His hands splayed against her back, holding her to him.

“I may have said you were a rival,” he countered. “But I never said you were an acquaintance.”

He didn’t know what sort of expression was on his face, but he watched her surprise descend into something else. It looked like worry and then annoyance. Like she knew the words that were about to come from his mouth, before he even spoke them.

“The two of you … go pack. You have five minutes to meet me out front by the lorry.” Roman turned and hurried up the stairs. That was when it hit him: he had just sent Iris a very important letter, and now was an immensely bad moment for her to read it. He was wondering whether he had enough time to sneak into her room and sweep it up off the floor

All opportunities of recovering his bumbling letter were gone, unless he wanted to spill the news to her this instant, with the space closing between them as she climbed the stairs. With a lorry parked out front, waiting to carry them west. They might be killed on this venture. And she would never know who he was and how he felt about her. But when he opened his mouth, his courage completely crumbled, and different words emerged instead.

That fire in her eyes could have brought him to his knees, and he loathed the façade he was wearing. He rushed along his way to pack before he said anything else that would further demolish his chances with her.

She unfortunately had to sit on Roman Kitt’s lap, nearly all the way to the front lines.

But she wondered how much the two of them would change in this war. What marks would it leave on them, shining like scars that never faded?

“Iris, wake up.” It was the voice of a boy who had arrived at her flat on the worst day of her life. Who had brought her abandoned coat to her, as if he were worried she would catch cold. The voice of a boy who had followed her to war and thrown paper wads at her face and set a newspaper in her hands with her article on the front page and challenged her to run up a hill to see the view beyond it.

She has to survive this, Roman thought. He didn’t want to live in a world without her and her words.

He had taken multiple wounds for her. He had put himself in harm’s way to keep her safe, and she wondered if she would be standing here in this moment with minor scrapes without him or if she would be shredded by shrapnel, dead in the shadows of a trench. If he hadn’t come with her … if he hadn’t been so stubborn, so insistent that he follow her …

He had been Carver all along, and this realization struck her so hard she had to sit down on the floor. She was overwhelmed by a startling rush of relief. It was him. She had been writing to him, falling for him, all this time.

“The C is for Carver,” Roman said, leaning closer to her. “My name is Roman Carver Kitt.” He wove his fingers into her hair and brought his mouth down to hers. Iris felt the shock ripple through her the moment their lips met. His kiss was hungry, as if he had longed to taste her for some time, and at first she couldn’t breathe. But then the shock melted, and she felt a thrill warm her blood. She opened her mouth against his, returning the kiss. She felt him shiver as her hands raced up his arms, clinging to him.

Roman continued to lean against the wall. But his gaze was wholly consumed by her, even as the nurse moved to help

Sometimes I remember how my heart stopped when I saw him sprawled on his back, staring up at the sky as if he were dead. When I saw him walking through the field during the eithral siren. When we collided in the golden grass. When his lips touched mine.

I am coming to love him, in two different ways. Face to face, and word to word. If I’m honest, there were moments when I longed for Carver, and moments when I longed for Roman, and now I don’t know how to bring the two together. Or if I even should.

Slowly, he lifted his fingers and wove them with hers—fingers that had typed letter after letter to her. And she raised him to his feet.

“You mentioned the other day that you think I’m only here to ‘outshine’ you. But that’s the furthest thing from the truth. I broke my engagement, quit my job, and traveled six hundred kilometers into war-torn land to be with you, Iris.”

“But the moment you walked away,” Roman rushed on, “I knew I felt something for you, which I had been denying for weeks. The moment you wrote me and said you were six hundred kilometers away from Oath … I thought my heart had stopped. To know that you would still want to write to me, but also that you were so far away. And as our letters progressed, I finally acknowledged that I was in love with you, and I wanted you to know who I was. That’s when I decided I would follow you. I didn’t want the life my father had planned for me—a life where I could never be with you.”

“The truth is I have my pride, and I feared my feelings. And so I left you with many things unsaid, and then I put what I thought was a cushion of days between us. Time to protect myself, to put all my armor on again. But then I realized that I’m not guaranteed anything. I should know this well by now, after being in the trenches. I’m not promised this evening, let alone tomorrow. A bomb could fall from the sky any moment, and I wouldn’t have had the chance to get to do this.”

“Why don’t we open the twin doors and bring our typewriters down to the kitchen? We can write at the table and enjoy this warm air while we wait for Marisol and Attie to return.” Iris narrowed her eyes. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying, Kitt?” “Yes.” Roman traced the corner of her mouth with his fingertip. “Let’s work together.”

It’s not a crime to feel joy, even when things seem hopeless. Iris, look at me. You deserve all the happiness in the world. And I intend to see that you have it.”

“Iris,” said Roman, “you are worthy of love. You are worthy to feel joy right now, even in the darkness. And just in case you’re wondering … I’m not going anywhere, unless you tell me to leave, and even then, we might need to negotiate.”

“My Iris,” he said, “there is no question that you are the brave one, all on your own. You were writing to me for weeks before I roused the courage to write you back. You walked into the Gazette and took me and my ego on without a blink. You were the one who came to the front lines, unafraid to look into the ugly face of war long before I did. I don’t know who I would be without you, but you have made me in all ways better than I ever was or could have ever hoped to be.”