Page 156 of The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy
Then his words came—helpless, almost frenzied. “But I’m a vile wretch—a criminal—a Fyren.”
“I know what you are. And I know what you are beyond those things.”
“I have nothing to offer you but the devotion of a man who has never been devoted, the love of a man who has never loved—”
Hope churned Aurienne’s blood and pounded in her ears. It wasn’t too late. She found the courage to look up. Was it her tears that blurred him and made his eyes so bright, or his? He brought her hands to his lips. Hope was the feeling of his warm breath against her skin.
“It would never have been too late,” he said. “I love you. I would have loved you in defiance of your rejection, and I will love you, in spite ofany of your objections. I had no heart to give, until you, and now it has passed to your keeping—and it’s yours—it’s yours—and it will be yours, whether you want it or not.”
Aurienne, in a half sob, said, “I want it.”
“If I’m to heal this horrid, fatal ache—it’s you. If I’m to fall on my knees, it’s before you—”
“If I’m to be happy, it’s with you.”
That left him stunned. Aurienne reached for him and kissed love—love irrevocable, love grief-laden, love impossible—upon his lips.
He swept her into his arms; her heart was irradiated with happiness; he smelled of blackthorn smoke; her face pressed into a cloak of darkest velvet, tucked and strapped all over with promises of violence; he was inevitably the Fyren, inevitably himself, and yet she loved him, and his eyes were full of light.
The fog raised them towards the heavens, or the heavens billowed towards the earth, and they were simultaneously there, and in a faraway place, both umbrous and luminous. And impossibilities didn’t matter, because a hundred years hence, none of this would matter, because she loved him, because they were just two souls in moonlight.
There, at the twilight of the year, at the edgeland, in that hallowed place studded with stones like bones, on the fault line between worlds, again and again, she told the man she loved that she loved him.
30
Eight Words
Osric
Osric’s soul thrilled with a mad rush.
She was in his arms. She, whom he had thought gone. She, whom he had entertained in fantasies and prayers, and dreamed of on purpose. She, whom he had found in every piece of art, in the brocade of frost upon glass, in every sparkle of light on water. She, who lingered like a sunspot he couldn’t blink away. She, whom he had thought lost.
She smiled at him, blossoms dancing at her feet and her dress a drift of white, mingling with the silky fog.
The little phrase burst between them among kisses—I love you,I love you—words so common, so well worn, they should have been shabby and frayed, but at that moment, in that place, they glowed like spoken stars.
Her lips traced the shape of his smile.
Aurienne Fairhrim, brilliant, silver-edged, sharp-tongued, was in his arms. She had always been like the moon herself: unattainable,bright, and pulling him in like a tide, and now she was here, and her cheeks were dimpled by smiles upon smiles, and she loved him, and he could hardly bear it.
If I’m to be happy, it’s with you.
This time, she had told him a fairy tale in only eight words.
31
Epilogue 1: The Ceremony
Osric
“A ceremony,” repeated Osric.
“Yes,” said Cíele.
“At Swanstone.”
“Yes.”
