Pretending is not a life.
Courage, it is contagious.
"Before Calum's council, I showed you that the people in those slums are your people too. Or has power already made you forget that fact?"
I still at her words.
There it is-that certain boldness only she possesses.
"I'm sorry you're forced to relive that moment every time you shut your eyes."
"Not every time." I shift, slipping of his chest to sit beside him. "Not when I'm with you."
He props himself up on an elbow, "Then I'll never leave your side."
I give him a look. "Don't make promises you can't keep."
"It's not promises I care to keep - it's you."
I pick the tip of his nose "You're quite the poet, Prince."
Moonlight pools in the dimple that accompanies his grin. "And you the muse, darling."
The door swings opeп.
I don't even need to turn around. The mere presence of her is familiar, branded into the hollow of my neck where her head rests, tethered to my ankle and forever tugging me toward her.
Escaping from the darkest corner of my mind, broken words slide of my tongue, barely more than a whisper. "Don't you hate her?"
To my surprise, he forces a smile. It's a sharp, small gesture he's willing to share with me. "Do you?"
We eye each other, and for the first time since setting that crown atop his head, I think we might just understand each other. Because suddenly, I see myself in him again. Paedyn is not a right or a wrong, not something as simple as a yes or a no. She is confusion itself, a feeling unplaced, a color between black and white. Hell, she is my Silver Savior. And hating her is not as simple as it may seem.
But for me, it is not loving her that has proven to be difficult.
"Death doesn't let you say goodbye. It just carves holes in your life, in your future, in your heart."
We will be judged by the courage of our hearts.
"Everything is good, as long as it is with you."
For without faith, there's no manipulation.
تَقَبَّلَ اللهُ مِنَّا وَمِنكُم۔
✨
"I am no one's queen. Is that so? Then you have no idea how much power you hold over me."
"You seem to forget that I'm completely powerless, Prince." Her words hold an edge, as though her breath has become a blade she drags along my neck.
"So be my weakness, then."
"I don't know if I'll survive this."
"You've already survived worse," I remind her sternly. "Besides, you seemed to have no problem handling that man in the throne room."
"As did you," she counters, and I can perfectly picture the steely look accompanying those words. "I don't need you to fight my battles."
"Oh, darling," I murmur, "I know you don't. But if I am to be your Enforcer, then you better get used to it."
I am the monster who hunted her down. I am the beast who delivered her to this doom. And I am afraid I'll become so much worse when I'm no longer striving to deserve her.
I thought I'd known torment until it wrapped around her finger. No, torment is tangible, and it gleams atop her tanned skin.
I stare, unblinking, at the symbol my brother slid onto her finger. It is binding. It is in Infinite. It is my undoing.
A laugh threatens to slip past my numb lips. It's not as though she hadn't promised to be my ruin, hadn't already become my demise. She is the single most destructive thing I have ever desired, and yet, it is the diamond on her finger that will destroy me.
Death is the only constant in my life, like an old friend who hones every one of my dark secrets into a weapon. He calls me weak and all I hear is Ordinary. He calls me doomed and all I hear is an earnest promise. His is the hand my bloody fingers reach for because there is comfort in his imminence.
The more she came to
know him, the harder it was to behold him, for he was like the sea,
unfathomable.
“I will say this once, angel, for I feel you should be warned. No man alive has ever loved a woman the way that I love you, and I would rather
die, damned as I am, than disgrace us both with the pitiful, unrequited performance of my heart.”
"Do not take from me what you cannot offer me in return. You need not ruin me utterly,” he said, nearly shaking. “You need not reduce me to ash simply because you can. I beg you to know your own power. Show me mercy even if I don’t deserve
it. My life, my heart, my blood—they’re already yours. Heaven knows I have nothing left to give you that isn’t already in pieces.”
“How does it
feel then? To know that she chose you?”
Cyrus had been struck silent by the gall of question.
“I don’t mean any harm,” the stranger had clarified. “It’s just we’ve all been wondering.
“Have you ever killed a moth?” Cyrus said faintly.
“Killed a moth?” The young man had frowned. “I beg your finest
pardon?”
“A moth, yes,” said Cyrus. “Have you ever killed one?”
“Are you taking the piss?”
“They have actual bodies,” Cyrus went on. “Wings and legs and eyes
and antennae. Yet you need hardly touch them to kill them. The lightest
pressure and they turn to dust.”
The man regarded him then as if hwere a lunatic.
“That,” said Cyrus, “is what it feels like. In her presence I am
easily killed returned over and over to dust.”
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