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I paused at that, turning to face her over the shattering of my glass and the melted candle that spilled a river of wax across the table between us. “Why do you treat him with kindness when the rest of your world shuns him?”
Myrinn took a deep breath, rolled back her shoulders and resolve returned into her strong expression. “Whereas everyone sees Faenir as the end to Evelina, I see him as its revival. I do not wish to perish in a dying world.”
“And why do you believe he can save it?”
“Because like calls to like,” Myrinn replied quietly. “Faenir was destined for birth for a reason. And he is family. He is my blood. I can never turn my back on the truth of that.”
20
Faenir stopped pacing the chamber the moment I burst through the door. By the time I saw him my heart was in my throat and my eyes were blurred with tears. I could hardly hold a full breath for fear of it breaking free in a sob.
“What has happened?” Faenir spluttered, cutting across the room so quickly that I was sure he floated on a violent breeze.
I threw myself into his unexpecting arms. My face crashed into his chest, my hands gripping one another behind his back as I allowed my tears to stain his tunic.
Faenir hesitated to return my embrace. But he gave in, gentle hands reaching for the sides of my face and forcing me to look up at him. “Speak to me, Arlo.”
Faenir’s thumb brushed a tear from my cheek as I struggled to find the right words to say. The haze behind his gilded stare changed from concern, to anger and back to worry. I could almost see him trying to silently work out what had happened.
“Myrinn,” I managed finally, “she told me what they did to you.”
He immediately stiffened. I felt his desire to pull away and hide himself from me, but there was no hiding anymore. Even in the darkness of the large room with the amber glow of candles being our only source of light, I saw Faenir clearly.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Faenir loosed a tired breath and pinched his pained eyes closed. “I had burdened you with enough by bringing you here. It would not have mattered if your time passed without you knowing the truth.”
I reached up and brushed my shaking hand down the line of his jaw. My fingers traced it down to his neck, to his chest where I laid them above his heart. “I’m sorry for what they did to you. What they do. I understand now. All of it. I understand.”Forming a sentence was hard through my laboured breathing. I spoke what I could, through broken, rushed words.
Faenir’s heart hammered beneath my palm, the pace quickening with every passing moment.“Do not cry for me, Arlo,” he whispered, opening his eyes once again as his steel resolve had returned to them.
“You have lost so much,” I replied. “Even more has been taken from you.”
“In this moment I feel like I have everything.”
His comment was so precise it stabbed through my soul and buried itself within my mind. It was as though he repeated it, speaking that sentence over and over in torment.It destroyed me. Unravelled me. Devoured me.
“I could give you so much more,” I said.
Faenir’s eyes widened in knowing. Before he could say anything further, I gave into the taut tension of our cord, the unseen one that had grown shorter every day during my time in Evelina. Now it was mere inches long; there was no pulling away anymore.
Rising on my tiptoes, cheeks slick with tears, I brought my face up to Faenir’s until our lips waited a hairbreadth apart. I felt his breath as he felt mine, a cool and welcoming breeze.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“What I should have all those nights ago.”
Our lips pressed together. At first it could not have been called a kiss. It was feather soft and slow, lips simply touching. Existing as one. Faenir watched through wide eyes as though he feared I would perish at any given moment.It lasted a few heartbeats before I retreated from him. His lack of response made me self-conscious and embarrassed.
Faenir was a frozen statue of disbelief. He did not stop me from pulling away. Instead, he let go of my cheek and raised fingers to his lips and touched them.
The sudden realisation flooded over me. That was Faenir’s first kiss. In his long life, that had been the very first.
I turned away before he could see my sadness turn to boiling embarrassment. Then a hand clasped my wrist, tugged me back again, and a body crashed into me.
Faenir kissed me back. This time it was far from gentle and inexperienced. It was heavy and passionate. Our faces melted together; mine held by Faenir’s desperate hands as he guided the kiss.It started as lips crushing together. I gripped his tunic in my fists and held him to me. Then my mouth parted, tongue encouraging its way into his mouth to greet his. They coiled. Wet and hungry.
Faenir’s hand moved and cupped the back of my head. There was no pulling away, nor did I want to. I gave into the wave of his desperation and happily drowned within it.A spreading of numb tingles filled every finger and toe, all twenty digits until I could no longer feel them. I could have lost myself in him like a maze with no desire to ever escape again.
