Page 122 of Winds of Ruin
“There is nothing foolish about believing in love. And frankly, those didn’t sound like the words of a woman whowasn’tin love then.”
She glanced away and long silence stretched between us.
When her lips parted, I trained my stare on them, wishing they would tell me she’d loved him.
Because if she’d never loved Ryn after centuries, if her heart was that impenetrable, then what chance did I have after twenty years? But if there was even a thread of hope, then I’d hang on to it.
“I still dream of him... He seems so real and yet so clearly a figment of my imagination. He’ll act as my friend and then say things that eat away at me.”
She picked at the fraying seam of her leather breeches.
“Our minds have a way of being our worst enemies.” I swallowed hard.
I needed to admit what I’d seen before waking—unravel everything I’d hidden. She deserved his message, too.
“Do you ever think of her... Firose?” Elsedora asked. I knew she loathed the woman who had done so much irreparable damage to the realm. Firose had also betrayed Else’s brother, Fenris.
She’d sparked a war that led to El’s parents’ deaths.
She’d been the mother of my child.
I couldn’t hate her. It hadn’t been love, either.
Sybilla may have unveiled the truth about how much of Firose’s treachery was Caym’s doing, but my Source Match’s actions left scars on the people I loved—on me.
I’d felt part of my Source power recoil as the marble in that amphitheater fell on the Fire-wielding enchantress who wove such complicated ties to the realms.
“I think of her often,” I admitted. “I’d done so many evil things under Caym’s control. She was the only one who understood. I suppose we were kindred in our guilt.”
El still toyed with the fray in the seam of her breeches—it had now grown into a gaping hole on her inner knee.
“Do you think she could have been someone you’d be happy ‘sacrificing your freedom’ for?’” Elsedora asked. Ice had edged into her voice.
She wore jealousy adorably. I treasured the slight flush of her freckled cheeks as she refused to meet my gaze. What a stupid, boyish thing to celebrate—her caring what I thought of another woman.
“It wasn’t like that between us... Well. Once.”
Her attention finally snagged. Would she be disgusted with my actions?
“I need to tell you something now. I don’t want you to hear it all for the first time tomorrow.”
Her shoulders braced. Without thinking, I slid my arm down, and rubbed her neck, trying to ease the tension my words were sure to heighten.
“That sounds ominous, puppy,” she teased, though a hint of worry laced her tone.
“When I was waking, I saw Ryn,” I admitted, and her eyes widened, growing glassy. “One moment I watched you from the orchard, like any other evening, and then the next he was there. I was ripped away from the world and takensomewhereelse.”
“Watched me?” Her head tilted.
I’d slipped up.
No time like the present to dig my grave deeper.
“It sounds odd. But in the years that followed Caym being unbound from me, I found peace here. Watching you come and go from Lamoreaux anchored me. They weren’t dreams.”
She smirked. “Did you look in the windows while I—”
“Can you stop trying to turn me to putty for a moment?” I stifled a laugh, wanting so badly to sit with her in this moment of levity without anything changing.
