Instead, I wrap an arm around him and pull him tight to my body. He sinks against me. “We’re going to get through this.”
“How?”
How. That insatiable question. There’s only one person who always has an answer for it, and she’s deep below the earth, fighting her own battles. “I don’t know. But as long as we’re together, there’s nothing we can’t overcome.”
Farron doesn’t respond, so I sink to the floor between his legs so I can catch his downcast gaze. He is indescribably beautiful, even wrapped in melancholy. His damp hair curls ever so slightly, shimmering like burnished copper in the candlelight. He’s sporting that short beard, the color redder than his hair. And despite all the ways we’ve changed, I’ve still got the constellation of freckles across his nose memorized. I can picture them with my eyes closed, my favorite set of stars.
Farron’s thumbs continue to rotate around and around each other, body shivering as if a fever has taken hold. “I w-wanted to save them. I thought I could. Death cannot touch what stands at my side?—”
I want to tell Farron he doesn’t need the Green Flame. But I know the words will go unheard. To him, it’s the only way he won’t lose anyone the way he lost his mother.
I clasp my hands over his, stilling the movement. “Death is not our enemy, Farron, and we cannot fight it. But what you’re feeling—that fear? I know it too. But it’s only embers. Your love, Farron, is a raging fire. One that can light our way. Trust yourself.”
“Trust myself?” Farron makes a pained sound. “I changed you, Day.”
I grab his hands with such force, his wayward gaze finally focuses on me. There is no doubt in my voice nor my heart as Itell him with all the strength I can muster, “I’m not giving up on me. And I’m not giving up on you.”
29
Farron
Iblink, slow and heavy, the way one does when waking upafter a long sleep. A shaky inhale rattles through my lungs.
Then I nod.
So many horrible thoughts assault my mind when I let the haze drift away. The bloodcurdling screams, the shatter and squelch of thorns through flesh and armor, the intense scent of lavender and intestines on the wind. And a guilt that scrambles with claws and fangs through my body, tearing at me with such fury, all I want to do is fade?—
But…when I look down at Dayton…
It seems as if there’s a dreamy glow emanating from him. And if I stay within it, nothing bad can touch me.
Dayton looks up at me with those earnest eyes. He’s changed from his road clothes, but his hair is a matted mess. I imagine weaving my hands through it, untangling the golden strands, braiding the front pieces back so no part of his beautiful face is hidden. Regardless of whether he’s clad in armor or candlelight, he looks the perfect hero.
No wonder he always leaves.Autumn is what becomes of Summer when it’s time to die.
“I always come back,” Dayton says.
“What?”Where did that come from?
“I’ll always come back,” Dayton repeats.
There’s a single beat of silence, and then we are two magnets, pulled together, not daring nor wanting to fight against it anymore. Dayton runs his hands up the sides of my body, then twines his fingers through my hair. I trace the lines of his jaw, his cheeks, knowing them intimately yet needing to reassure myself all the same.
We stare at each other. Our breath mingles. Then we both lurch forward into a kiss, hungry and desperate and sad all at once. His body presses against mine. I kiss him like I need it, and I do. More than oxygen. More than sunlight. More than the beating of my own heart. As long as he kisses me, I am sustained.
I scoot back on my bed, and Dayton scrambles up to join me. Though I know he hasn’t been to Hadria in days, he still smells of Summer. The whiff of salt and sunbaked stone mixed with the heady spiced scent of Autumn reminds me of our younger days.
We collapse onto the bed, kissing. My hands roam his neck, the muscles of his shoulders, the strength of his arms. He engulfs me in an embrace, his tongue dancing with mine.
There’s a purity in the way he kisses me, basking me in that light of his that chases away the rest of the world. What would it be like, to live without fear, without war, without the threat of violence against all we hold dear?
The thought drags a raspy inhale from my throat, and I pull away.
“Fare?”
“What is good outside this?” I whisper. “Rosie’s trapped. Kel’s captured. I have poisoned us and?—”
“No, no, no,” Dayton murmurs and begins kissing my neck, hand stroking the scruff of my beard. “Are you crazy, Fare? There’ssomuch good on the horizon. We just have to get there. I promise.”
