Page 135 of Burn Her They Said
My lungs sting, chest heaving with every erratic breath I pull in.
“Since you so honestly shared how you felt, should I do the same?” he asks in a low tone, while a tingling sensation spirals down to my core. I stifle a moan and clench to little effect. “Can you imagine me experiencing what you described for yourself when I discovered your sleeping head cradled on Malin’s lap?”
He presses in again, and I swallow nothing, unable to ignore how anyone passing by might happen upon us at any time.
“Though I absolutely am greedy when it comes to you, Tasch,” he rasps, gaze drifting down to where my chest constricts after years of yearning for this.
I lick my lips, having fantasized about this moment for years—though I can’t go through with it. We cannot risk innocent lives for such selfishness.
He straightens, and my heart drops, though it’s best if we stand further apart.
“Imagine the way it felt to look through the window, expecting to find you sitting upright, to not see any sign of you at all.” His eyes scan my face as she comes forward, donning the armor required to survive this.
She ensures I convey nothing, guarding my heart so well it becomes as impenetrable as the Imperial Palace.
“My heart dropped to my stomach.” Varic’s voice wavers, and the pain resonating within his admission obliterates every safeguard she tries to maintain.
A buzzing sensation trills through my body with his confession, indicating more than the promises contained within the vow, almost convincing me his feelings could be more than misplaced fealty.
“I lost all sense,” he says. “I rapped on the glass so hard I’m surprised it remained intact. I still don’t know how the sound didn’t wake you.” His expression shifts, and I want to bring him closer. “I demanded they tell me where you were. I was so desperate for answers, I nearly commanded the driver to halt so I might check for myself when Cirrin and Fray gestured that you were sleeping. And when I realized where you were lying down, and who you were lying on—” He moves closer, and our chests press together as I avert my gaze to his pulse pounding alongside his throat.
“It took everything in me—and I mean everything—to keep from stopping the carriage while I ruminated over how doing so would allow me to drop to the road so I could tear open the door and make Malin trade places with me.”
He shakes his head and steps back, allowing the air to flow between our bodies. His eyes dart around the ground where he mindlessly toes a fallen tree limb.
Of course, he would feel protective of me after all the support I provided in his darkest time. Especially now that he’s promised to return the favor as my Lead Guard. He admitted as much to the Emperor only yesterday. With his need to be the one offering me his hand—to be the one taking care of me—it is all understandable, given our history.
My hands itch with the need to embrace him, regardless of how inappropriate it is to entertain his misplaced compassion.
“The entire ride, knowing you only did what I asked you to do. The very thing you once begged me to practice, explaining how it was the only way I would survive when you left.” His voice shakes, and terror infiltrates my veins as I hold his gaze.
“I was livid. Irate. Irrationally angry. I needed to be the one taking care of you.” His eyes glimmer back at me every time the sun breaks through the leaves. “Not him.” His voice cracks as he glances toward Malin, blocking our view of the road.
“I can’t handle standing by and watching—” His voice trails off as his eyes clench shut. Then he takes several steps toward me and nearly closes the distance he created.
I can’t take any more of this. I can’t keep from telling him where his feelings stem from.
“Allow me to make sure I understand.” I reach across the slip of air between us, encouraging his eyes to fly open, then soften the moment they find mine. “You claim to be incapable of tolerating my Guards providing me with the support you made me promise to request, then you experience distress when you find I am taking a much-needed nap if it means my head is resting on anyone else’s lap?”
A pained groan rises from his chest. “How can I explain? I felt trapped—like a caged animal—cycling through anger and frustration, ruminating for hours. I was vacillating between jealousy, envy, and greed. I felt so possessive over you; it concerned me.” He stares back with the same intensity as the words he speaks, and I cannot hide my trembling.
“I tried to calm myself. But I was unable to think logically—all because I knew you were unconscious on another sorcerer’s lap.” His head drops, and I lean into the pull of him, nearly bringing the center of our foreheads together as our heavy breaths mingle between us.
“I was incapable of gaining control of my emotions—something I consistently fail to do when it comes to you.” His voice is pained with the burden of being beholden to the one who helped ease him back from the brink.
Of course, he feels overwhelmed in my presence. How could his emotions be anything but contorted when he has been forced time and time again to feel indebted to me?
My only hope for a resolution is that I have helped him to recognize hard truths before this, meaning he must possess some understanding based on what he described to the Emperor. The likelihood that he will come to understand what I know to be true hinges on our past discussions on the need to seek the truth, something we both recognized as being hidden behind the lies of those in power, even when our own minds perpetuate it.
I can do this. I can help him recognize how his feelings for me are not what he thinks, but rather another example of his shining integrity. I will help him understand that every moment he has acted in my protection, from how his smile transforms the moment it finds me, to the way our eyes always seem to find the other’s—all can be explained if he will just listen.
“Thank you for your honesty.” I step back and away. “And I am sorry.”
His brow furrows while he reaches as if to grab hold of me before making a tight fist in the growing distance.
“I am sorry the Emperor sent me to rehabilitate you in such a way that you have been made to feel beholden to me.” His lips part, but I press on. “And I am most sorry you were made to take the vow to protect me now.”
“Is that what you think?” he asks, consuming every bit of space I just created, as my eyes trace the deep-set lines in the center of his brow, then the desperation whirling behind his irises. He sends me his pent-up anger and frustration, mixed with a vast sense of confusion spinning in a whirling vortex inside his chest. “I’m not?—”
