Shade glanced toward the light, then back at her.“We don’t have to answer everything now.”
She rolled her eyes.“That sounds suspiciously mature.”
His lips turned up slightly.“I’m experimenting with personal growth.It’s unpleasant.”
Myanin’s face scrunched up.“Looks painful.”
He gave her a full, ridiculously handsome smile.“It is.”
She breathed out slowly, watching her own exhalation stir a single page loose from the wall beside her.Some of the tightness in her chest loosened with it.Not enough to make this easier.Nothing was going to make this easier.But at least she could stand without feeling as if the weight of every choice she had ever made was pressing directly against her spine.
The book had not given her answers.It had done something worse.It had taken away another place to hide.
Myanin looked toward the path opening ahead of them, then nodded once at the gold light pooling against the floor.“What do you think is down there?”
Shade followed her gaze.“Something terrible.”
“That’s a relief.”
“I try.”
She stepped forward, and her shoulder almost touched his as she moved past.She stopped when his hand brushed hers.Accidental.Maybe.Neither moved away.The contact lasted only a heartbeat.Then two.Finally Shade’s fingers curled lightly against hers, not holding, only asking.
Myanin stared down at their hands, at the way his knuckles fit against hers in the gold light.Gerick’s face flashed through her mind, steady and kind and good, and pain moved through her in a clean, quiet wave.But beneath it, honest and undeniable, something else moved, too.
She turned her hand just enough for her fingers to slip between Shade’s.
The gold light at the end of the corridor flared, brightening the walls until every shifting word beneath the parchment glowed faintly through.
Shade went very still beside her.
“Do not look satisfied,” she warned, eyes forward.
His thumb brushed once against her knuckles.“I wouldn't dare.”
“Liar.”
“Yes.”
The path ahead widened, and somewhere deep inside the Nushtonia, a page turned with the sound of a verdict being written.
Myanin tightened her fingers around Shade’s.Then together, they walked toward whatever truth waited next.
Shade had imaginedthis moment a thousand different ways over the years.In every version, victory had tasted sweeter.Instead, standing beside Myanin in the shifting gold light of the Nushtonia with her fingers threaded through his, all he felt was terrified.Not of the book.Not of the darkness moving through its endless corridors.
Her.
The terrifying, impossible female beside him who had just destroyed him with honesty that he knew cost her.
Shade stared down at their joined hands as they walked slowly through the glowing corridor.Myanin had not let go.He could feel the tension still running through her fingers, the uncertainty, the guilt she carried like armor too heavy for one person to bear.
And still ...
She had held on.
The realization pressed dangerously against the center of his chest.
Mine.
