Page 121 of Embers of Ruin

Silence.

My hands curl into fists. “One fucking answer, Thorin! Not a prophecy fragment. Not a warning. Not another sentence cut in half because you’ve decided I can’t survive the rest of it.”

My voice shakes. “Tell me... or I’ll leave.”

Tears blur my vision, and I look away. I can’t watch Thorin’s face crumple while I’m falling apart.

“Thorin...” My voice breaks around his name. “I will never come back to you.”

I swallow hard. “And I will make myself stop wanting to belong to you.”

I look him straight in the eyes. “One answer.”

His brow furrows.

“I know what I am to you.”

When Thorin opened that mental door, something inside me unlocked. Not memories of my parents. Flashes with them. My mother’s voice. My father’s laughter. The language I’d buried with them.

I don't know everything. But I know enough to understand just how much I mean to the King of Solaris.

“Long before my parents died, they taught me the Old Language.” I swallow hard. “I know what muya mivanti means.”

Thorin doesn’t move. He’s completely still, and the color slowly leaves his face.

“I know I’m your mate, Thorin.” My voice breaks. “And I know you’re... muya quenati.”

I shake my head, tears spilling freely now. “My king.”

Something shifts in his expression.

“I’ve been to the archives a few times. I found out about mate bonds... why my wrist burns. I know.”

His gaze never leaves mine. Whatever wall he’s spent years holding together... breaks.

“Ask me,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “Ask me anything.”

“Why me, Thorin?”

Thorin goes perfectly still. Onyx looks at the floor, his jaw clenched and brow furrowed.

Every reaction tells me the question matters, and that only makes the ache inside my chest worse.

“Why me?” I repeat, because the first time feels like it was swallowed by my grief. “Not the silver hair. Not the prophecy. Not the magic. Me. Why did Onyx come for me? How did you know to look? Why do you stare at me like I am something you lost before you ever found me?”

His eyes darken and an unreadable expression crosses his face. For one impossible moment, I think he will answer truthfully.

Instead he says, “Because your power answered the curse.”

I stare at him, angrily wiping tears from my face. “That’s not enough!”

“It is the truth.”

“It’s a fraction of the truth, and you know it.”

“Yes.” His honesty takes me by surprise.

My laugh breaks into something bordering on mania. “Gods, I hate you, Thorin.”