Page 163 of Between Despair and Hope

Rain moved toward the far side of the room and pulled a sheet off what turned out to be a sideboard. When he opened the cabinet though, he jumped back and swore.

“What is it?”

“Nothing—” he began, before sighing and cutting himself off. “I went to get some glasses out, but there’s old draíbea in here.”

“Oh, we don’t need to smoke any of that; just the wine is fine,” I said, confused.

He laughed without humor. “I’m never smoking this shit again.”

I turned from where I sat, watching him in the dim light of the lamp. His hand rested on the cabinet door, and I studied the lines of his face. Tight and tired, he looked down at the drawer inside the cabinet. It took a moment for me to realize.

“Darkhold. You smelled like it.”

“A censer suspended from the ceiling where I couldn’t reach, and they gave it to me in my meals.”

“Oh, Rain. Here, let me,” I said, but he yanked the drawer open and grabbed it before I could even get up. Only when he stalked past me toward the outside door, small satchel in hand, did I begin to smell it. When he flung the doors open and threw it over the balcony, the wind whipped into the room, carrying the thick, cloying sweetness to me. I’d never liked draíbea, something Lavenia and I usually abstained from while the others partook. The one and only time I’d tried smoking it, I kept seeing things out of the corner of my eye. It wasn’t a relaxing experience for me, but Lucia had enjoyed it well enough, calling it an escape from the truth.

If they’d been making him breathe it the entire time? Between that and the mindbreaker, no wonder he’d been so worried about accidentally hurting me. The lines between true and false would have been hard for him to see. My heart ached for him, and I felt the ebbing panic through the bond.

Unmoving, I held my breath and waited for the shadows to overtake him. I wanted nothing more than to approach him, though I didn’t move, afraid to make it worse. But he surprised me. Rain stood there for only a moment, and took a deep breath, rubbing at his sternum.

“Em, come here.”

Thankful I still had my cloak on, I moved to stand beside him in the doorway. But as I approached, I felt a slight tug from my chest, almost as if one of those golden strings between us was being tugged toward the balcony outside. Glancing up at Rain, his confusion told me he felt it, too.

“It feels…important.”

“It does,” I agreed.

Following the sensation to where it tugged us, we found ourselves on the western facing side of the tower. When the feeling on that golden string abated, we stood square in the middle of the balcony, almost exactly where he’d once had his telescope set up. Many hours on many nights, I’d snuck up here with him, and we had watched the stars. Though our first kiss was in the meadow, this was where I first fell in love with Rain. If asked, I couldn’t have pinpointed any one night in particular, but it had flowered over quiet nights spent together, heads huddled close as he taught me the constellations. I remembered one night in particular when I finally had realized what it was I’d been feeling. I’d left in a hurry, not bothering to say goodnight.

He’d kissed me the first time the very next day.

“It’s a perfect night for it. No moon,” he said.

“It is. What do you think that was? That feeling?”

“I don’t know, but it’s passed now.”

“Mmm,” I hummed. “I wish I understood all the implications. The bond, the Beloved, my divinity—all of it. I don’t like not knowing.”

“I don’t like it either. Maybe next time a god shows up in your dreams, you should ask them.” He chuckled when I glared at him. It wasn’t as if Rhia had been forthcoming. He faced me, pulling my hands into his, and lifted his eyes to the stars. “Damia,” he said on a sigh as his lips lifted into a beautiful smile. “My deliverance.”

I lost track of time as I watched him, the smile on his face softening as he stared into the sky. “Do you still have the telescope?”

“It’s inside. Would you like me to get it out?”

“I thought you might want to test me,” I said, my smile meeting his.

“Oh, you test me every day, Emmeline,” he teased, though he went inside to fetch the telescope anyway.

“And that one?”

“Irses, the death-bringer,” I recited.

“Wrong, that’s Damia. Try again,” he said.

“Shit. Irses, the hope-bearer.”

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