Page 125 of Burn Her They Said
Additional amber energy flows from him, shimmery and shifting until it tingles along the sensitive skin underneath my feet. My eyes widen as the energy pulses beneath me, and an odd vibration emanates from the energy force, surprisingly soothing as it courses over the sore muscles within the soles.
“How is this different from your regular shielding?” I ask, entranced.
Varic’s expression remains focused as he holds his arm out in offering.
“Here, hold on to me,” he says, and I grab hold while my heart hammers in anticipation. “If it starts to feel too unsteady, tell me.” I open my mouth to ask him what he means, since he did something similar when we were made to dance together, then clamp my jaw shut when his magic lifts me up.
“Oh, shit!” I exclaim, because this is certainly different.
“You’re okay. I have you.” He wraps an arm around my waist and something shifts between us, making this moment feel far more intimate than all the contact and conversation we shared while trapped in this room.
Using his magic to provide me a reprieve, helping me walk when I otherwise could not, stirs something more than gratitude and appreciation, and much more powerful than admiration. Imbued with a unique color—a reddish pink—unlike anything I’ve known to be experienced by anyone other than Varic.
It pulses between us like that tether tugging on my chest, and I pull in a sharp intake of breath. This feeling—this color—it’s been there. I’ve sensed it. Every time the flush crawls up my neck from the center of my chest. Every time he looks at me. Defends me. Protects me.
I know this color better than I’ve allowed myself to recognize—something which has been a part of our connection for far longer than I could have previously acknowledged.
Because this color, this specific hue, is how my mind sees Varic’s love. For me.
I shake my head, trying to keep this realization from becoming permanent, as my memory is often that of an Elder Dragon, recalling all I wish to forget.
“Am I hurting you?” Varic asks, and my heart squeezes.
“No,” I say, swallowing. His expression softens as his feelings for me flow into my chest. I allow it all—every last bit—selfishly taking what he’s giving after years of neglect.
Or not. This feeling he has for me, this love, it’s been there. He has expressed it. Some part of me must have known. It’s obvious now, thinking back. It’s in the way he looks at me. How his tone shifts every time he forms my name. The way in which he disarms me by filling the deep dark void I carry with a feeling we all need but seldom receive.
I look at him now with tears in my eyes, and my chest swelling past what seems possible, and tell him, earnestly, “This is amazing, Varic.”
His eyes search mine, and I say a silent plea for him to cease as fear spills from some fracture deep within me, confirming how impossible it is to hide from him the longer we’re in each other’s presence. This connection we share is dangerous. His concern for me is based on some false sense of fealty. It is wrong of me to accept his misplaced feelings without telling him what I now understand to be true.
“What are you doing differently from every other time you’ve supported me with your shield?”
Varic shrugs. “I just…put a different emphasis on the way I cast it. Which doesn’t make sense, but it’s the only way I can think to describe it.”
Lars crosses his arms and stares at Varic. “Well, I can neither see nor feel what you’re talking about, so I am just going to assume whatever it is will help her walk, and since the Emperor is going to rage if we keep him waiting much longer, what’s the plan?”
“I am going to assist Tasch in walking to the Emperor’s bathing chamber as commanded.”
“Don’t you think anyone will notice her floating above the floor?” Fray asks, gesturing to where my feet do as he describes.
“No,” Varic says confidently. “Watch.”
He nudges his chin toward me, “Take a step, Tasch.” My heart thrums as much from his repeated use of my name as from the experiment for which I am the test subject.
With a deep breath, I take the first step, and pain emanates from engaging my sore muscles before feeling as if I am stepping on vapor, which holds me up somehow.
“Whoa. You can’t tell anything is different,” Fray says.
“Damn,” Lars says, not usually so easy to impress.
“Thank you,” I say, pinning Varic with my gaze, needing him to receive this—to receive my heartfelt gratitude. He deserves it, being doomed to love the one who has not earned his staunch loyalty and self-sacrificing tendencies.
He shifts the arm I’ve been leaning on, no longer needing to brace myself as the one he has wound around my middle steadies me enough in conjunction with his magic. Then he takes my hand in his and holds it not for support—or at least not the physical sort. His impossibly bright eyes seem to brighten considerably, and he steals my breath when his lips curve up in a prideful smile.
“I will do everything in my power to take care of you, Tasch.”
I stare back as shock and awe take over and freeze my expression, withholding the unbidden tears conjured by his words. I’ve never been the recipient of a similar sentiment—not in the way he means it, and certainly never with such conviction. The red-tinged amber emotion flows around him like a warbling mist, its gentle warmth blanketing us as my own feelings war with themselves, desperately wanting to accept this while recognizing its dangers.
