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“What?”
“Marriage, Sebian,” Malyr said. “How about you take Galantia to wife?” When Sebian’s arm stiffened on me, a malicious smirk curled one corner of Malyr’s mouth. “No, you are not quite so heroic as to abandon your oaths, are you? Did you actually ever tell her…?” His eyes found mine. “Did he tell you, little dove?”
My entire body shook as I looked at Sebian. “Tell me what?”
Sebian’s lips parted, closed, parted again.
Nothing came out.
“I did not think you had,” Malyr said. “Do you want to tell her why you never kissed her, hmm? Or should I?” One second passed. Two. Three. “Very well. See, little dove, Sebian—”
“No…” Lips trembling, Sebian hung his head. For a fraction of a breath, he hid his eyes from me, only for the forest-green orbs to lift and find mine with a layer of unshed tears to resemble leaves after a rain. “My mate died in the fire during that night, Galantia, along with the rest of my family. She died because of me, because I didn’t protect her.” A stuttered gulp. “We were… we were bonded.”
Bonded.
My ribs curled into my heart all over again, puncturing a frozen organ wounded with a million cracks.What would it feel like to be loved with such intensity? Such unequivocal fortitude, not even death could impose conditions?
I would never know. Not with either of these men, because one hated me, and the other had his love forever tied to a corpse. Not with anybody else, either. Nobody loved me. Nobody ever would.
My eyes burned.
My surroundings blurred.
Until the sweltering wetness trailed down my cheeks, collecting on my trembling chin from where it drip-drip-dripped onto the floor in an abundance of tears. Years of them flowed out of me as I cried for Risa, for Sebian, perhaps even for Malyr. But most of all, I cried for myself.
“See, there is no love for you here—not from me, not from him. There is no love for you anywhere.” Malyr leaned into me, letting his tongue lap a trail along my cheek, devouring my tears all the way to the corner of my eye, where he suckled and finished with a kiss. “I told you I would break you like your father had done it with me, little white dove. And, oh, how delicious your tears are.”
Another crack to my heart.
Something inside me fractured, a deafening clash echoing through the hollows of my heart, my core, my soul. It cracked through hope and naïve dreams, shattering me so completely, each piece a testament to a love that had never been. Would never be.
From the wreckage of my being, something primal emerged. A force so powerful, so raw, it thrummed with the rhythm of my shattering soul, vibrating through every vein, every nerve, every fiber of my being. The force exploded outwards, a silent, blinding storm of white feathers and plumes that eclipsed my conscience and enlightened it at the same time.
Color bled over the room.
Our vision sharpened.
With a storm of white wingbeats, my ravens carried me up to the flight hole, and out into the even whiter winter from there. Our plumage blended with the snow and the clouds. Our wings carried us east.
Away from the pain.
