Bastien cocked his head, eyes narrowing at me. “Do you really think yourself so base?”
“I know myself to be flawed. Arrogant. Self-centered. You’ve said so yourself.”
“Right, and I stand by those assessments.”
“Then why would you think for a second that I’ll be anything other than a disaster?”
“Because you’re infinitely more than the failures you cling to,” Bastien argued, drawing his hand away from my chest to grip my other shoulder, holding me in place. “Yes, you’ve made mistakes. Yes, I’ve seen you act with arrogance. With self-centered pride. But I’ve seen much more than that. I’ve seen the way you care for others. Seen you take away pain with a wave of your hand. I’ve watched you stand before thousands of your people, and command their respect, their adoration. And I’ve witnessed when you think that no one is watching, how the bravado you project fades away, revealing the man beneath the pomp and circumstance. The man who wants nothing more than to do right by those he cares for. That is the man whom I see looking back at me now.”
Tears spilled down my face, but I couldn’t look away from him. How was it that someone I had known for a few short months could see me so clearly, even when I turned a blind eye inward? Peeling back the layers with finesse as fine as a surgeon to reveal the truth beneath the façade.
I felt vulnerable in his hands. Even more so than when our clothes had been stripped away in a dance of passion. There was an intimacy that exuded from his gaze that I had rarely experienced, and it disarmed me. This wasn’t merely a physical connection any longer. It was something deeper. Something that sparked the prickle of fear in my gut, but I forced myself not to look away.
Bastien reached up, cupping my face and dragging his thumb across my cheekbone to clear away the stream of tears. I leaned into his touch, a shudder passing through me like an echo of pleasure. Wrapping my arms around him, I could bear the distance no longer, and I enveloped him in a kiss.
He responded in kind, his body crashing into mine, one hand still holding my head while the other twisted itself into the fabric of my clothes. This was more than just a display of attraction. It had become something more. Something to be revered.
I had never intended for Bastien to become so precious to me. He was supposed to be a distraction. Something to occupy my attention till Tobias was awake once more. There was no way that he’d ever allow himself to feel affection for me. Yet, somewhere along the way, a seismic shift had occurred. Maybe it was the tether that wrapped around us, illuminating the room with its brilliance. Or maybe it had been written long before Tobias had bound us together.
Either way, there was but one certainty I knew in that moment, held in his arms. I loved this man. IlovedBastien, and though fear bloomed alongside that confession, it was quickly overshadowed by the surge of elation that ran through me.
I loved him. And there was no denying that fact any longer.
When we broke apart, Bastien’s golden eyes widened a bit, and I knew that I must have inadvertently sent something down the tether to reveal my feelings to him. Bracing myself for his reaction, I released my hold on him, taking a step back. But Bastien quickly caught me again, pulling me back in.
“No, stay right there. You don’t get to drop this on me and run.”
“Bastien, I didn’t mean to?—”
“It’s alright,” he interrupted, lips curling into a smile. “If you had waited around another second, you would have known my reply.”
He rested his hand against my chest, his eyes fluttering closed as the tether around us glowed brighter once again. For a brief moment, our consciousnesses collided, the resulting cacophony disorienting, but then Bastien seemed to gaincontrol, and one message rose above all the din, resonating and affirming?—
“I love you, too.”
The connection flared, thoughts racing through my mind like swells of starlings, all beating wings and constant motion. I wanted to tell him how much it meant to me, how I had hoped with all hope that what I felt wasn’t false. But in that moment, connected with him on that level, I didn’t need to say a word. The proof was wrapped around us in all of its splendor.
We stayed like that, fixed in place by the overwhelming strength of the emotions that flowed through that tether. I reveled in it, allowing the waves of bliss to dilute any of the fear that had clung to the walls of my soul.
Whatever was going to come next, I knew that Bastien was going to be there to remind me of the man that I wished to be. When he finally pulled away, and the luminescence of our tether dimmed once more, his eyes drifted back to the herbs I had gathered, and a smile once again spread across his lips.
“I already told you that I fucked it up,” I offered, crossing my arms, even though I also couldn’t stop the grin that had commandeered my face.
“I think you’re past due for a lesson. Come on, I’ll show you what you’ve been missing.”
He didn’t need to be reminded of the truth in those words.
When the last of the ingredients had been gathered from the stores, Bastien set to work preparing the space for his spellwork. The library was equipped with half a dozen of these designated spell labs, filled to the brim with all kinds of equipment thatseemed foreign to me. Amongst the Church practitioners, a certain level of tradition had permeated the rituals. I recalled watching the clergy members work spells from large iron cauldrons old enough to remember the first Awakening. Rancid smoke would spew from caustic fires, and the entire chamber would reek for weeks at a time after they had resolved the spell.
But Bastien’s spellwork was beautiful in comparison. From grinding the herbs into vibrant pastes to simmering a verdant concoction in glass vials held over flames, the way he moved was elegance in motion, drifting from one component to the next before he’d return to the compendium set on the counter to double-check his work.
The evening stretched on as Bastien toiled, checking over his work again and again till he reached a point that seemed to thwart him. He poured over the same page for a long moment, then let out a hiss between his teeth as he stepped away, rubbing his eyes.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“This poison,” he explained. “The ingredient that the Sleeper told me was the key to making the spell work. I’ve never heard of one of the ingredients, and we don’t exactly have the time for me to ransack the library shelves looking for it.”
I moved to join him by the thick tome, scraps of paper scattered around the book that Bastien had scrawled on as he worked. The handwritten page was in a language I didn’t recognize—most likely one used by the Reviled before the schism—so I asked, “Which one is it?”
