King of Immortal Tithe by Ben Alderson

Author:Ben Alderson [Alderson, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-09-02T22:00:00+00:00

20

Faenir stopped pacing the chamber the moment I burst through the door. By the time I saw him my heart was in my throat and my eyes were blurred with tears. I could hardly hold a full breath for fear of it breaking free in a sob.

“What has happened?” Faenir spluttered, cutting across the room so quickly that I was sure he floated on a violent breeze.

I threw myself into his unexpecting arms. My face crashed into his chest, my hands gripping one another behind his back as I allowed my tears to stain his tunic.

Faenir hesitated to return my embrace. But he gave in, gentle hands reaching for the sides of my face and forcing me to look up at him. “Speak to me, Arlo.”

Faenir’s thumb brushed a tear from my cheek as I struggled to find the right words to say. The haze behind his gilded stare changed from concern, to anger and back to worry. I could almost see him trying to silently work out what had happened.

“Myrinn,” I managed finally, “she told me what they did to you.”

He immediately stiffened. I felt his desire to pull away and hide himself from me, but there was no hiding anymore. Even in the darkness of the large room with the amber glow of candles being our only source of light, I saw Faenir clearly.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Faenir loosed a tired breath and pinched his pained eyes closed. “I had burdened you with enough by bringing you here. It would not have mattered if your time passed without you knowing the truth.”

I reached up and brushed my shaking hand down the line of his jaw. My fingers traced it down to his neck, to his chest where I laid them above his heart. “I’m sorry for what they did to you. What they do. I understand now. All of it. I understand.” Forming a sentence was hard through my laboured breathing. I spoke what I could, through broken, rushed words.

Faenir’s heart hammered beneath my palm, the pace quickening with every passing moment. “Do not cry for me, Arlo,” he whispered, opening his eyes once again as his steel resolve had returned to them.

“You have lost so much,” I replied. “Even more has been taken from you.”

“In this moment I feel like I have everything.”

His comment was so precise it stabbed through my soul and buried itself within my mind. It was as though he repeated it, speaking that sentence over and over in torment. It destroyed me. Unravelled me. Devoured me.

“I could give you so much more,” I said.

Faenir’s eyes widened in knowing. Before he could say anything further, I gave into the taut tension of our cord, the unseen one that had grown shorter every day during my time in Evelina. Now it was mere inches long; there was no pulling away anymore.

Rising on my tiptoes, cheeks slick with tears, I brought my face up to Faenir’s until our lips waited a hairbreadth apart. I felt his breath as he felt mine, a cool and welcoming breeze.

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