The question is carried away on a breath of wind. The sky doesn’t answer me.
But the ache beneath my sternum does.
I close my eyes.
And I feel him.
The connection isn’t as clear, like I’m swimming through silty water, but it’s still there, even if it is raw.
He’s awake. And he feels restless. And lonely.
Always lonely.
My throat tightens, and I draw my cloak tighter around myself as my body starts to tremble in the cold.
For weeks now, I’ve told myself that walking away wasthe right choice. He was trying to chooseforme, so instead, I chose independence. But it doesn’t feel freeing. It feels like I severed part of myself, and the phantom pain still lingers, right there in my chest.
I open my eyes and glance down at my boots. If it were still autumn, I’d be barefoot, moving across the stone, practicing the swordsmanship drills Severin taught me.
Memories rush in, making me catch my breath. Instead of fighting them, I surrender.
His strong hands gripping my hips. The tickle of his breath along the shell of my ear. The steady rhythm of his heartbeat as he held me against him, our bodies moving together in the dark.
I grit my teeth as moisture gathers in my eyes.
“I hate that I miss you,” I say to the darkness.
Before Severin, I didn’t need anyone. I’d never let a lover get this close to me. I took a chance on him, and it changed everything.
For the first time since telling him it’s over, I stop trying to convince myself, stop trying to carry out endless arguments in my head regarding whether I was right or wrong. I just sit with it, drop my walls and let the emotions crash over me.
In response, my magic surges.
When I look down, faint spiderwebs of electricity are dancing along my fingertips.
I lift my hands and call on my magic. A soft glow forms between my palms, delicate at first, like starlight caught in a bottle. Carefully, I begin to shape it, coaxing it into a familiar sphere.
It comes easily.
The energy hums steadily, a calming rumble. The cold wind dances around me, stirring the hem of my cloak. I focus on my breathing as the sphere grows, its energy intensifying.
For a moment, I feel steady. Strong.
Then the connection in my chest pulls tight, tugging at me with such need that I have to catch my breath.
The sphere floating between my hands shifts, as if being drawn toward Severin, toward the staff apartment where we once made love by firelight, where he sank his fangs into my skin and drank the blood I offered so willingly.
“No,” I whisper to my magic.
I try to wield more control over it, try to stop it from trying to move toward him. The sphere pulses with light, making me wince against the flash in the darkness.
But the harder I push and the more I fight it, the more unwieldy it becomes.
Wind rises around me, and lightning dances from my hands up to my wrists.
I grit my teeth.
This is like going back to the start of the semester, when I could barely hold the sphere’s shape. It’s like my progress is dissolving right in front of my eyes.
