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It was actually really delicious plain. I’d always loved pasta. While the small round balls were a bit different than the fettuccine noodles I’d been obsessed with on Earth, the flavor and texture was really similar. Hell, maybe it was even better. Odin had salted it perfectly, too.
“You’re not gagging,” he remarked, making me snort.
“No. It’s good.”
He seemed surprised by the compliment, and I grimaced at the reminder that I was usually bitchy.
Damn, I was tired of being his enemy. Of being everyone’s enemy.
Of… everything.
“Do you ever just want to start over?” I asked him quietly. “Not with us—I know you’d rather start over with someone other than me, with the mating thing. I just mean… with everything.”
I paused and closed my eyes, regretting speaking even before all of the words left my mouth. “Never mind.”
“You can’t change your mind about speaking to me without giving me a chance to respond,” he remarked, holding out another spoonful.
I reluctantly took the bite.
“I think everyone wants to start over sometimes,” he said, as I chewed. “I know you think my life was perfect, but I lost my vision around my seventh birthday. Afterward, I was constantly targeted for my blindness by the other children around me. I survived the cruelty, but it took a long time to accept what I’d lost. To be okay with the fact that I’d never see the green of the trees against the soft clouds. That I’d never watch the sand swirl around the dunes, dragged by the wind. That I’d never look at the face of the female that fate declared mine.”
My throat swelled.
More guilt rolled through me.
“There were years I spent, aching for a new beginning. For a way to trade my power for a new set of eyes. I would’ve traded anything, everything for it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
“I’m not,” he said simply. “Not anymore, at least.”
And then he refilled the spoon, holding out to me again.
I took another bite, slightly less reluctant that time.
“Why do you want to start over?” he asked me.
I chewed slowly, buying myself time.
My first instinct was to snap at him. To tell him that was none of his business.
But I’d started this conversation, and I was so damn tired of hurting him. Of hurting myself, too.
“I just wish I was someone else,” I said quietly, when I couldn’t put off an answer anymore. “Someone happier. Nicer, too. Someone who doesn’t burn things down.”
He nodded slowly. “The fire fae have a saying: ‘a burnt bridge is an excuse to take a new path’. They believe in fresh starts—in destroying things, for the sake of rebuilding them better. They are destructive, and they are violent. But they live vibrantly. I’ve envied that, often.”
My chest hurt a little.
A burnt bridge is an excuse to take a new path.
That sounded like…
Well, like another chance.
“I’ve burned a lot of bridges,” I whispered.
“Then you stand at the head of many new paths.” He held out another spoonful of pasta.
