Page 292 of Blade of the Nightking

Dark hair. Silver glinting in watchful eyes. That absurd, infuriating dimple, forever at odds with the solemn mouth that concealed it.

I pushed the image away.

I reached again for Aedric's smile. The warmth of his embrace. The peace I'd always found in his arms.

Instead, rough hands ghosted over my skin. Impossibly soft lips found mine. The quiet rumble of a laugh—so rare—rolled through me.

I tore my thoughts away and fixed my gaze on the path ahead, willing my feet to keep moving. Part of me wished they could carry me straight past my hut and onward into the darkness. Farther from the bonfire. From the village. From Elantis.

From my own treacherous heart.

I absently thumbed the necklace, feeling the strange grooves of the large, misshapen beads. I glanced down. Tiny shrunken faerie skulls glared sightlessly up at me. With a gasp, I tore it from my neck and flung it aside, my skin crawling as I hurried along.

The drums became a muted pulse behind me, and the laughter blurred into the background beneath the rustle of the leaves. The air smelled of woodsmoke and damp earth, the faint aromas of the feast carried on the mild breeze.

My hut waited at the edge of the village. At night, the gnarled oak beside it looked like an Infected, its twisted branches clawing at the darkness.

Someone had lit the firepit earlier that evening, but it had been left untended for some time. The fire had dwindled to a few weak tongues licking at the glowing coals. Rather than go inside, I knelt beside the embers and laid a few logs across them. They caught almost at once, fire racing along the dry bark before climbing greedily upward.

I sat back and watched it gather strength, its warmth washing over my face. That familiar anguish stole over me—the strange combination of fascination and an aching sense of loss. Fire had always done that to me. Now I knew why.

My gaze settled on the heart of the flames, on that deep place where the fire burned hottest. There, hidden within the gold and orange, was that impossible shade of blue.

I stared at it until my eyes watered.

It wasn’t until the flames died low again that I felt the quiet tightening beneath my ribs, the pull of that last precious, invisible thread.

I knew without looking who stood behind me.

He waited quietly, not imposing and yet somehow taking up all the space in the world. How I wished he hadn’t come after me—and yet how glad I was that he had.

"I thought you were going to bed," he said.

I bit my lower lip. “I just… I needed a moment alone.”

Silence settled between us. Then⁠—

"Has the moment passed?"

A startled scoff escaped me, and I glanced up at him before I could stop myself.

The smile that answered was fleeting, no more than the smallest lift of one corner of his mouth, but it drew the familiar dimple into his left cheek.

Gods, he was unfair to look at.

He was inhuman in the waning firelight—wrought with a kind of austere beauty that belonged to old statues and forgotten gods.

He lowered himself beside me. Not close enough for us to touch, but close enough that I could feel his presence—his power—bleeding outward from his body. I bit back a groan as my magic stirred at his nearness, slithering from its hiding place like a snake from its hole.

He drew one knee up, then the other, clasping his wrists loosely around them.

For a long while, neither of us spoke. We simply watched the fire burn itself down.

"What are you thinking about?" My voice came out embarrassingly hoarse.

A log snapped, sending weak sparks up into the night.

At last, he exhaled. "The same thing as you, I imagine."