Page 55 of Winds of Ruin
He palmed the hilt and ran his hand over the detailed carvings there. “It’s odd to hold something he once wielded. It’s hard to imagine him awake.”
I stepped closer to Dritan and drew my finger over the marking that had scarred the blade’s pommel. “This here”—I pointed to the three skulls that were cut through with a triangle—“was Caym’s mark. It’s how he once tracked your father’s movements.”
At least my parents hoped that’s all it did. So little could be determined about how the Death Origin last rose.
Dritan’s brows pinched together, and his hands stiffened around the hilt. “I don’t see it.”
My blood ran cold. “Well, it’s dim in here.”
“Lark, there’s nothing there.” He pointed right at it.
I stared down at the death mark. I didn’t know why it would present itself to me and not him. It seemed a bad omen.
Dritan’s expression turned hard and contemplative—he only got that way when concerned. He flipped the blade over in his palm and chewed on his lower lip.
“What?” I demanded.
He sighed.
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll force it out of you.”
He leveled me a look of challenge that was downright enticing. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I hate that you’re right, but don’t test me. Just tell me what you’re thinking. I should not have to guess with you.”
He offered me a weak smile. “This blade. It feels wrong.” He gritted his teeth and shrugged.
“Wronghow?” My hands found my hips as I cocked one—a habit I’d learned from my mother. It only made him quirk a brow of interest.
“It doesn’t feel like a source of salvation or hope. I don’t know how else to describe it other thanwrong.You shouldn’t wield this, Lark.”
I huffed, grabbing it back from him. “What do you know?”
His gaze narrowed. “Don’t be bratty about it. I was being honest,as you wished.”
My shoulders sank. I offered him a faint “hmph.”
Dritan never lied to me or sugarcoated his thoughts—I loved that about him, but his lack of confidence rocked me off-balance.
Sheathing the sword at my side again, I raised my chin. He knew my whims too well, and he’d see right through my show of annoyance.
Especially since the desire to embrace him grew stronger than the desire to hold a grudge.
Dritan rolled his eyes. “Is this about the other night?”
“Hm, let’s see. About me asking whether you would marry me and you saying, ‘That depends’? That night?”
His lips curled up into a devastating smirk—dimpled and captivating.
“That is not how I said it at all,” he challenged. “You knew what I meant—I don’t want you rushing into this. I said, ‘That depends on if you are truly, without hesitation, ready.’”
“I don’t have all the time in the world,” I objected. He laced his fingers through mine and held them between us at his heart. “What better reason for marriage is there than a lack of time?”
“Be serious a minute.” He pulled my wrists up and kissed the inside of each. My knees grew weak. I was not sure when the boy I liked had turned into the man I loved. It’d happened over a thousand tiny moments.
Lust had not bloomed right away for either of us. Then it’d blossomed quickly from the first time he’d kissed me a year prior.
“I’m being serious,” I said. “I want to spend my remaining years with you by my side. Maybe I don’t want to die alone at the hands of Caym when he breaks free from that mirror. I just want you to bemine. Now.”
