Page 54 of Queen of Shadows and Ruin

She shrugged. “It’s been a thousand years. Maybe I forgot.”

They shared another look before they both fell silent. The wind softly rustled the leaves, and the screech of a bird echoed in the distance.

“What will you do? Talk to the king?” he asked. She noticed the lines around his mouth tighten at the question.

She shook her head. “He doesn’t seem to think any of this is a problem. He thinks I’m just imagining it, or it’s all in my head.”

Rabin took her hand and squeezed it. “We’ll figure out what this is.”

She chewed on her bottom lip. “What if Dhawan was right?”

Rabin’s brow creased. “You are not the darkness, Zarya. You are the very definition of light.”

She gestured around them and the damning evidence of what she’d done. Her gaze skirted over the dead trees. “How can you say that? You remember what happened to your flowers. Something isn’t right.”

His jaw turned hard as he surveyed their surroundings before he shook his head. “There is some explanation for this. Some other one.”

“What if there isn’t?” she asked. “What if I did cause it, and what if it’s returning? What if something evil lives inside of me?”

“Zarya—”

“No, don’t deny it. Answer me. What if this is real?”

Rabin reached out to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “Why are you asking me this?”

“Because I’m afraid. Because I might be a monster, and you are bound to me. I should have told you about the visions before I let you perform the Bandhan.”

He studied her with his intense gaze. “Zarya. What if this were the other way around? What if the darkness lived in me? What would you say?”

She swallowed. “I’d tell you that we’d find a way to fix it, or we’d both die trying.”

He huffed out a small laugh. “Zarya, don’t you think that I feel the same? I promised you that I would protect you no matter what. Whatever the fates throw our way, I will be there for you. If this is something we must deal with. If evil lives inside you, I will also stand by your side for as long as it takes.”

Zarya’s mouth pressed together as tears filled her eyes. One slipped down her cheek, and she said, “I love you. I know we had a rocky start, but I love you, and I’m so lucky the fates chose you to be my paramadhar.”

He offered her a tipped smile. “They chose well. I can’t imagine being bound to anyone else.”

Then he leaned in to kiss her and she sensed he was trying to offer a message of his truth and his commitment. That he was trying to prove the sincerity of his words. She would do the same for him. Of course she would.

He pulled away and touched his forehead to hers.

“I love you, too,” he whispered as they sat quietly holding one another, surrounded by the ruin of all her secrets.

Rabin held Zarya tightly as she continued to shake. The look on her face was unbearable when she asked him if he would stand beside her. He understood why she needed to voice the question. He understood what it felt like to worry that the ones you loved might walk away.

After a few minutes, she pulled away and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

“It’s freezing out here,” she whispered. “We should probably go back.”

She looked around the withered clearing, blinking as if wishing she could make it disappear. “Can you… fix this?”

Her wary look was so full of apprehension that he immediately nodded. “I can.”

He stood up and took a moment to circle the clearing while calling on his magic. Swirls of coppery light floated from his fingers, touching the trees and curling around their trunks and branches.

He watched as his magic took hold, restoring the plants to their former state. When he’d finished, he turned to find Zarya watching him with a sparkling sort of wonder.

“You’re amazing,” she said, eliciting a warm twist in his heart.