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“Yes, it’s been a long forever.” He hopped off the altar and paced around the innocuous spot on the floor, taking the occasional swig of wine. “My brother doesn’t love me, I know that, yet there’s a part of me that wants to believe it, despite all he’s done.”
I watched Lark circle and turn over his memories, torturing himself anew. He didn’t have to go through it alone, but he’d made it clear how he didn’t want my help.
He stopped, planted his boots, and admired the art covering the pyramid’s walls. “He’s crawling around inside me now, and if we don’t stop him, he’ll be inside everyone, like a poison. That is not a world I want to live in.”
“Wewillstop him.”
He looked hard at me, almost sneering, and then a smile wiped all that away, leaving torchlight flickering in his dark eyes. “I sometimes dream it’s just he and I left, ruling over a world of ashes. He saved me, and he’ll do it again and again.”
“He saved you from a death of his making.”
“I tried to die…” Lark gestured at the floor. “He fuckin’ saved me.” He tore his sleeve up, exposing the vertical scar. “I cut myself, and he fucking saved me again. Is that love, Arin?”
“I’m not sure I’m the best person to ask, but it’s not any love I know of,” I admitted. “Love isn’t kind, it’s not fair either. So perhaps, yes, in Razak’s own cruel way, it is his love.”
It wasn’t fair how I loved Lark but couldn’t save him. It wasn’t fair that his mother had been killed, when she’d loved Lark with all her heart. It wasn’t fair that Umair’s wife had been taken by sickness, and it wasn’t fair how Umair had abandoned Razak, perhaps sparking this vicious chain of events into motion. Nothing about the love in our lives was fair.
He snorted, then chuckled. “Love is not fair,” he echoed, savoring the words. “I think—” He stopped himself, studied the wall art, and sighed. “IknowI can stop him.”
“How?”
“Just me. Not you, or Draven, nobody else. Just me.”
This was classic Lark. He’d do something dramatic, something foolish and outright suicidal, thinking it was the only option he had. “Lark?” I approached, careful not to force him away. This talk of killing himself and Razak bringing him back, of how only he could stop his brother? I didn’t like the coldness in his eyes, or the chill in his voice. “You’re drunk—”
“He’s alone. Our father abandoned him; his heart is a fetid thing. But he has me. That’s why he brings me back, that’s why he cannot stand the thought of my dying. If I die, he’s truly abandoned in this world. Andthatis what he fears the most.” Lark’s smile flashed, skirting bitterness.
“That may be so, but it’s not down to you to stop him. It’s gone beyond that now. With War, with Justice, we finally have the strength to prevent—”
He stepped close, so close that I lost a heartbeat somewhere in his glittering eyes. “I know what I have to do.”
“And what is that?”
He set the bottle down and grasped both my hands, lifting them at my side. “Help me, Prince of Hearts.”
“I don’t—”
He stepped right and took his right hand from my grasp and pressed it to my lower back, clutching me close, as though to dance. Where was this coming from? “I was wrong to shut you out. Ineedyou.” He studied my face. Passion simmered in his eyes, but pain too. If he kissed me, I’d let him.Wantedhim to. He’d pushed me away since he thought he’d been the one to propel Razak to godhood, and I’d let him, but now, he was pulling me close, letting me in. His hand tightened on mine. “You’re the missing piece of me, like… a broken string in a fiddle, like…” He searched around for some more fancy words. “Wait, I have this… like the storm needs its lightning.” Delight and wicked glee made his eyes shine.
“Really?” I spluttered a laugh, and Lark swept me around, dancing us to the music in his head. “Wait—”
“I need you as the thorn needs its rose.”
“Oh by Dallin.” I laughed, making us stumble, but he swept me along again. “Please stop.”
He did stop, but he grasped my blushing face in cool hands. “You are my Prince of Flowers and I’m the Prince of Storms, and I’ve been a fool to ever doubt you, doubtus. The problem with us is me. I do not know how to be loved, but I’m willing to learn, if you’ll teach me.”
Tears glistened in his eyes now, sending another fracture through my heart. He blinked them away, unshed, but I’d seen them.
The need to have him, protect him, keep him safe, swept all my fears and doubts away. “Yes,” I breathed, and flung my arms around him, crushing him close. “I have you, Lark. We’ll save each other, I promise.”
* * *
Draven had securedseveral bottles of wine. We drank together, talked, laughed, and caroused in his chambers. Lark was in high spirits and managed to spin a raucous poem about a warlord and an aide from the court of ice. Its double entendre somehow sailed far over Draven’s head, but not Noemi’s, who blushed and laughed, clearly smitten.
I stumbled to my chambers near dawn, pulled Lark inside, and shoved him against the wall. I had his mouth under mine in a heartbeat, kissing him without a care. He always tasted sweetly delicious, like a drug I knew would carry me far away, where the woes of reality dared not touch us.
He gasped free with a laugh. “Why, Prince Arin, sex before marriage? How scandalous of you.”
