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Quickly, I turned so that I was staring at the horrendous painting hanging above the bed depicting an unrecognizable beast suckling its offspring.
Noticing my foul mood, Kalen offered with feigned optimism, “It’s good news, Gwynore.”
I chucked one of the pillows onto the floor beside me with enough force to incapacitate a small animal.
“A fractional piece of good news tied to a string of nothing but other bad news,” was my reply. “Not only are we completely unsure of which Sage betrayed us, but we also have no idea what we are going to face when we do enter Aegedonia. That is if we even make it there. Your power is draining with every day, and all I have going for me is that I am a relatively untrained, half-idiot, with a penchant for sharp metal.”
My cloak was shucked off, the rest of my clothes following quickly behind. Through the linen gauze of my undershirt, I saw Kalen’s eyes go bright with Light, and then he promptly turned his back to me.
“Gwyn, you are none of those things. You don’t give yourself enough credit,” he said to the wall. His shoulder blades were flexing beneath his skin with each staggered breath he took.
“And you do?” I spat. With my clothes discarded in a small pile by the door, I crawled into the center of the bed and wrapped the sheets around my body, my agitation clear in the fuss of my movements. Sensing that I was modest, Kalen turned to face me once again. I threw the throw from the bed to him.He looked towards the pillow on the ground and then back to me with confusion. “You prefer not to be near me, remember?” I snarked, nodding my head to the floor.
Kalen clutched the blanket in between his fingers and expelled a breath. After a moment of silence, he spoke. “Gwyn, what I said last night at the inn...it isn’t exactly what I meant.”
“Oh, so you mean to tell me that you are a liar?” I mocked, soothing my hot cheeks against the cool of my pillow. “Well, I hate to disappoint you, but that isn’t exactly the revelation you think it is.”
“It is obvious you’re upset with me, but you’re going to have to lose the sarcasm if you want me to explain.”
What an arrogant proposition. I wanted to claw his windpipe through the tissues of his neck. See how well he could explain, then. But I was just as hurt by his rejection as I was masochistic. I’d begun to like this hateful little ritual we had. To see him squirm as he tried to explain away yet another lie, another slight. Our back and forth just barely reinforced the absurd idea that Kalen actually cared for something other than himself. Maybe, even someone other than himself.
“You think I’m working some grand angle and leveraging my powers at every turn, but the truth is –”
“If that is not the truth, then this will be interesting to hear after all.”
Mother help me and the mouth I did not know how to shut.
As soon as I’d let the words fly, the room shrank against the power filling it. My head was snapped in his direction, my body yanked up.
A voiceless command,Listen.
Kalen’s entire face was chiseled from gold. I stared at him, even more furious that he’d turned his magic against me. A vein in his neck throbbed. The Preserver. He was awake.
“The truth,” he growled, “is that I don’t have a clue what to dowith you. I have no plan. Chaos is breaking out around us, and I have no real strategy because all I can think clearly of is you, Gwyn. You, with your stupid counting and your smart mouth. You, and your incessant need to put yourself in danger to save my life in the Well. You, standing in front of me with thatlook. I don’t have a plan for any of that because…well, how do you prepare for something you don’t even believe is real?”
“You’re the Preserver,” I replied through a clenched jaw. “Shed Light on the truth and see for yourself if you don’t believe it.”
He stuttered, caught. “You know that I can’t. Not when my powers are weakened, and I—”
“Liar,” I challenged. Gold, glowing, bald-faced liar.
Kalen’s hands dropped feebly against his sides.“Fine,” he admitted. “I don’t need to.”
He took a step forward, trying to daunt me.
I raised to my knees on the bed, unafraid.
“When I look at you,” he said slowly, “I know every thought running through your mind just as if it had entered my own. I can feel it. The way you want me, now.”
I attempted to muffle the look of vindication that was surely beginning to show on my face. I knew he could hear me. Too many times he had acknowledged my thoughts before I’d voiced them. Too many times I caught him staring at me in a way that felt like my heart was ripped out of my body before him, reading like a torn page from a book.
“The flush blooming on the parts of your skin you’re desperate for me to touch,” he continued, drawing so close to me, my chest met his when I took a breath, only a sheet seperating that part of my skin he spoke of, blistering from his words. He dipped his face into the crook of my neck next, his breath ghosting over my shoulder. I felt the damp tip of his tongue and a small bite of his teeth upon my ear as he let out arough whipser, “The ache in between your thighs...it’s as if I’m holding you against me and making it so.”
His knees touched the bed frame as pulled slightly back. Leaning his hands against the mattress, he bent down so that we were eye to Light-bending eye. Kalen whispered, “But most of all, the way your heart bleeds for me. I can see it. An untended wound. It pours and it never stops, and if I come any closer to you, neither will I.”
Every ounce of arrogance I felt moments before, withered. To know he could feel how much I wanted him was one thing. For him to understand what fueled that want, was another completely.
The inexplicable feeling rooted deep in the walls of my chest whenever I looked at him. Even when I didn’t look at him. He could be hidden in any room, in any continent, in any world, and I would know it. My soul would search for him like a lost stone. I wouldknowit. Every bit of that certainty choked the question I both feared and needed answered.
