Baron would not be satisfied without an entire lifetime of Aria.
“Aria.” His voice had gone hoarse, and he felt her shiver. “The curse can’t take you. I won’t let it.”
She looked up at him, her hair catching a glow from the lamp behind her, peeking like a ray of hope.
Baron slipped the journal from her hands, dropping it to the floor. He intertwined his fingers with hers, leaning in until their faces nearly touched.
“Do you trust me?”
To his surprise, she gave a thin, heartbreaking laugh. “All these years, I knew I had to accomplish everything myself. I had to be capable of it all. Now I realize how wrong I was—Ican’tdo it all. But I can choose who I trust to help.” Holding his gaze, she nodded, and her voice grew tender. “Yes, Baron, I trust you. More than I’ve ever trusted anyone.”
He felt the weight of that trust settle into every bone, a sacred burden he would never betray. With reverence, he said, “I’m about to kiss you like your life depends on it.”
He heard her breath catch, and then she tilted her head to meet his lips. He curled his fingers around her shoulder, drawing her to him, and in return, she released his other hand to fist both of hers in his shirt, clinging like he was the anchor to life itself. He gently stroked his fingertips down her arm, tracing a line from her elbow up to her wrist and back down. As she trembled in his arms, he wondered if she felt the same fear of loss he did, the same desperation to make a brighter future they could share together.
Aria reached up, tangling one hand in his hair, her lips moving against his with more force. Baron held steady for her, letting her take whatever strength she needed, until her trembling eased, until he felt her soften.
When he reached for her hair, his fingers hit the feathered comb, and he tugged it free. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders—and his arm—with a wave of lilac scent, tightening Baron’s chest with a surge of longing. He shifted, catching her waist and pulling her into his lap, feeling the warmth of her all alonghis chest. They fit together like lemon and leaf, like sword and sheath, like two halves always meant to be whole.
And with that sense ofwholenesssuffusing him in every bone, he opened his mind to magic.
At once, his world fell into night. A storm raged in the darkness, and he could not make out shapes in the pitch. When he strained for light, the darkness swallowed it, a flash of jagged blue lightning vanishing into black. The song of Aria’s blood was thunder in his ears. Though his head began to pound, he forced more flashes of light. Each one highlighted a silhouette, blurred at the edges, two things masquerading as one. The curse lurked as a shadow behind Aria, revealed only in light, copying the contours of her edges perfectly. It had become her, and in all the duels Baron had ever fought, he’d never been so outclassed by an opponent.
His breathing grew ragged, but he did not surrender. He held Aria more tightly, shifting them both on the couch, his palms steady against her back as he struggled to save her from the storm.
Aria’s lips slid to his jaw, then to the side of his throat, trailing kisses down his witch’s mark and rendering him quite unable to breathe. For a moment, Baron lost his hold on magic.
Then he grinned. From the moment they’d first met, she’d been catching him off guard, reorienting his world to face an entirely new sun, the light of it brighter than he’d ever imagined.
He seized that light, and he turned it on her curse.
“Baron—” she whispered.
“Concentrating,” he murmured back, smiling as he recaptured her lips.
She relaxed into him, resting her hands against his chest.
He allowed himself to exist fully in the moment, in the feeling of her weight against him, of her skin on his. Instinct, not thought.
The curse had made itself Aria’s image, but Baron knew the difference. He knew herdetails—had felt her kindness, her embarrassment, her fear, her joy. He’d inspired her laughter and wiped her tears. Every moment they’d shared, every touch, every word in every letter, filled his awareness of Aria with color and betrayed the shadow’s hollow dark. With magic, he focused every memory into light until it was no longer brief flashes but a blazing sun, until it cut the storm and began stretching the shadow, driving it back.
Finally, only a pinprick of contact remained, a thin slip of darkness clinging to Aria’s heels.
In the kiss, Baron playfully nipped her lip.
In his mind, he cut the tether.
With a gasp, Aria drew back, holding Baron’s gaze with wide brown eyes.
He tucked her hair behind her ear, winding his fingers in the silk of it. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“Just a tingle,” she whispered. “Is it really ... ?”
With a smile, he kissed her again.
Aria insisted on returning to the castle alone. Corvin needed his family with him, and Baron wouldn’t have been permitted in a meeting of the Upper Court. Besides, she was about to kick the court as if it were a beehive, and it would be easier to contain the damage with fewer people around to get stung.
“This is my duty,” she told him, “and I’m ready to face it.”
