Page 101 of Born of Starlight
My hand broke free from him to light a glowing blue orb in my palm. Fen’s eyes were glazed over, milky white, and his brow was still crinkled in pain.
“Fen, please…come back to me.”
I leaned in to brush the gentlest kiss across his lips, then his cheek. My head dropped into the crook of his neck.
“Please, please…”I whispered there into his skin, running my free hand up through his auburn waves.
What if he didn’t come out of it?
“Did you just kiss me?” The vibration of his voice startled me. Relief washed over me as I pulled back to find his eyes had cleared.
“Now that is a beautiful expression, definitely my new favorite.” He brought his thumb to my lower lip. Guilt settled a pit into my stomach.
“I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have made you show me.”
He simply smirked, still looking a bit dazed, and shook his head.
Blue light from the orb danced through his thick lashes. His lips, which I’d once sworn off kissing, were slightly ajar as though mesmerized by the sight of it.
“It wasn’t you,” I whispered.
I was finally seeing all of him.The horrors he endured, the guilt, the agony.It was all laid bare to me.
“It may not have been by my hand. But I gave Firose that power.” He reached up for his throat as if expecting pain where there was none. “I canspeakof it.”
Forcing the truth from him seemed to have broken the Tace enchantment.
“I loved her.” He swallowed hard. “Until the moment she broke Van free of my arm and used him against the people I was trying to protect. Then, I could never shake the feeling thatI’ddone it to her. I gave her that burden. She descended into a person that I did not recognize—it was as though bearing my power in that gem ruined her. Seeing it on you…”
No.I would not allow Fen to blame himself.
“She was an opportunist,” I said firmly. “Isan opportunist. She used your love against you like she is plotting to use my obedience against me. You did not ruin her—her actions are her own, and you can not own them for her.”
He wouldn’t meet my gaze, and I couldn’t bear to see him like this. Needing to be rid of the orb in my hands, I raised it over our heads and allowed it to float up to the ceiling, where it broke into tiny fragments resembling the night sky. A trick I’d learned to do as a girl when frightened of the dark and wishing to see the stars above.
It cast a cool-blue glow across the bedchamber.
With my hands free, I took his face between them. His warmth thawed my cold fingertips.Stars meeting flames.
“I felt your heart—your intentions. Your pain. I felt everything. You let yourself be vulnerable with her, and shebetrayedyou. It was not your fault. You cannot keep blaming yourself.”
I would pull Firose’s heart out with my bare hands and not think twice.The hairs on the back of my neck stood at that realization. Maybe it was simply the bond of our magic, but I would do whatever it took to relieve the pain in his expression.
A warm feeling grew in my stomach—affection.I realized it had been growing there and budding into something all along.
“In the arena…I said horrible things to you.”
I wanted to pull him closer to me, to hold him. Instead, I stroked the sides of his face, trying to will forgiveness into his heart. Forgiveness for me, forgiveness for himself. His breathing grew shallow.
My blood flashed cold—that half of him that Firose had once possessed. It lived in me.
His hot and cold affections, his fickle games—they’d been partly his nature, but partly the effects of a guarded heart.
“Don’t you dare start apologizing.” He pulled my hands away from his face.
“I need to.” My voice rasped. “I will give it all back—your power. We will figure out how to unbind it from me. I would never…” I couldn’t figure out what to say.
“You would never what?” His words were a soft plea.
