Page 149 of Silver in the Bone

Nash had warned me about Endymion Dye years ago, and as with most of his stories, I’d assumed it was exaggerated. The man had always been rigid and harsh, but never, in all my worst thoughts of him, could I have imagined him giving his own flesh and blood such cruel and lasting injuries.

Wordlessly, I drew Emrys close again; I wrapped my arm around his waist and pressed my face to the warm spot between his shoulder and neck. My hand stroked down his spine, and every rough ridge of a scar brought me closer to tears, imagining.

Emrys shuddered, his arm around me tightening. “That’s the real reason I took this job. I have nothing of my own. He controls everything and everyone in my life. I needed money to find a way to get me and my mom out of his reach. Out of his life.”

Stripping away the charming gloss, that beautiful polish of wealth he’d once worn as proudly as his signet ring, what was left was this real boy whose life had been little better than a cruel secret. One who’d been alone inside that gilded cage of pain and blood and quiet terror.

I breathed in the scent of him, my nose and lips skimming over his skin, trying to give comfort my words felt too clumsy to convey. His fingers drew drowsy circles on my back, leaving trails of fire behind.

“I wanted you to know,” he whispered. “I wanted to tell you before so you’d understand, but I was ashamed—”

“No,” I said vehemently. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“There is,” he said thickly. “Because I was too much of a coward to leave before things got this bad. I was scared to let go of everything I’d grown up with, and what I was supposed to be. And then there were other fears, including if I’d ever see you again ... and I wasn’t ready for that.”

My hand stilled on his back, but my heart climbed.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I know how you feel.” He swallowed. “There’s nothing you have to do or say, and I’m not telling you all this because I want you to feel sorry for me—gods, that’s the last thing I want, especially knowing how much worse you’ve had it. But if we’re in this freezing hell and everything is upside down and nothing’s certain, I can at least be brave enough to tell you. I can tell you that to me, you’ve always felt like spring. Like possibility. I admire you, and respect you, and I want to be near you as long as I can. As long as you’ll let me be.”

The shock of his words exploded like stars inside my skin, somehow as inevitable as they were unexpected. My lips formed his name against his collarbone. Emrys.

“So ... ,” he said with a trembling laugh. “There. I’ve said it now.”

And maybe, for him, I could be brave enough to say it too.

My throat worked hard to clear the lump from it, and when I spoke, there was an unexpected huskiness to my voice, one I’d never heard before. “I lied to you, too.”

Where to start? Where to begin when I had no beginning at all? His hand stroked up my back to the place where my neck held all of that tension. Years of restraint.

“Or not a lie, but not the truth, either,” I whispered, closing my eyes. “You asked me how I came into Nash’s care, and ...” Cabell was the only other person who knew this humiliating story. “It was a misunderstanding.”

“What do you mean?” he murmured.

“He ... he was playing cards and thought the Tamsin being staked was a boat,” I managed to get out. “Imagine his horror and surprise when it turned out to be a little girl he had no use for. Another mouth to feed.”

“What?” Emrys breathed out. “Your parents just ...”

“Gave me away,” I finished hoarsely. I drew my injured arm closer to me, almost relishing the fresh sting of pain. “Didn’t care about who it was or what Nash would do to me. Maybe they knew what I was ... what was under my skin. Maybe Nash figured it out and that’s ... that’s why he left.”

“No,” Emrys said fervently, “no way. There is nothing wrong about you. We don’t even know what it means.”

“Don’t we?” I whispered. “Cabell was right about why I wanted to look for Nash. He’s always been right. I just didn’t want to believe it.”

“What do you mean?”

That hairline crack in my heart that I’d fought so hard to keep from splitting finally broke open, and all that was left was for the shame and pain to flow out in a drowning tide. For the first time in years, I started to cry.

“I wanted to break his curse,” I said. “If I lose Cabell, I really will be alone ... but I wanted proof that Nash hadn’t meant to leave us. I wanted to know that he hadn’t discarded me too. Even after years of knowing I wasn’t wanted, I didn’t want it to be true.”

The muscles of his arm flexed against my back, his hand weaving through my hair to tilt my head up. As I opened my eyes, the last of the firelight disappeared, and it was only the two of us intertwined in the warm darkness.

“You are,” Emrys swore. “You are wanted. God, I want you more than anything.”

A new heat gathered in my core at his words, but my whole body braced for him to take it back. To dash it all with a joke. But Emrys refused to back away from the words he’d put between us, and now they hovered there, all promise and anticipation and aching vulnerability.

Emrys had become a friend to me in the last couple of weeks, a partner, even, in the long hours of night. And now ...

What was this?

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