Page 20 of A Dance of Water

Luella rounded the corner.

"My gods." Az’s fingers gripped the iron bars so tightly she wondered, not for the first time, how they did not snap.

Luella’s eyes burned at the sound of his voice.

"It’s you."

She stepped forward. It was dark here, but she knew the demon could see, even in the deep shadows. He looked like he had been waiting for her. The call must have alerted him far before she showed up…

"Lu," Az whispered. His voice was a broken thing, even with that one word.

A sob bubbled up and spilled over her lips, bouncing off the walls.

The demon knelt on the ground, pressed right against the bars of his cell. The tips of his horns knocked against the iron, making soft clanging noises, and she was taken to another time when she shared the cell next to his—fingertips reaching between bars and fingers smoothing over the backs of hands and words whispered softly into the shadows.

Her blue eyes were drawn to that cell. It was smaller, with her standing on the outside of it. Less scary and… more sad.

Her fingers tightened in the folds of her dark cloak. Her hood was pushed back, and her white hair stood as a beacon in the dark.

"Please," he said. And her eyes fell back on where he was stretching out an arm between the bars, as far as he could manage, with his large frame and muscles. "Say something, Lu."

So, she did. "H-hi."

Her voice was equally as broken. From this far below the castle, she could just barely make out the faintest pitter-patter of rain.

"I’m so sorry, angel. Please. You have to forgive me." The words fell in a rush from Az’s anxiously bitten lips, as though they had been held back for far too long to be contained anymore.

Luella looked down, studying where her pale legs poked out from the bottom of her cloak.

"Come closer, please." The warmest of sugars and richest of chocolates settled over her like a blanket. "Do not deny me this, even with all the wrong I have done."

With that, she looked up at him. Amber eyesentreated her to move. Hesitantly, she took the last few steps that kept her from his reach. Her chest brushed against the iron bars.

His long, thick fingers stretched out, but he did not touch her. He seemed afraid.

Luella found her own hands reaching up, skimming lightly over the cool iron of the bars.

This close to him, she could make out deep shadows under his eyes, prominent even with his dusky skin. Her wide eyes tracked from where his fingers gripped the bars, over the exposed skin of his wrists, and to his forearms. Red blood crusted underneath his elbows, small jagged lines cut into his skin, mingling with the other scars that he had.

She could not contain it any longer.

Tears fell freely from her eyes. She tried to blink them away, but they just fell harder.

"You’ve done wrong," Luella started. Even with him kneeling, she had to look up to meet his eyes. "But not as the others have done." She implored him to understand. "Az, yousavedme."

The sound of her name on his lips appeared to be his undoing. Tears fell from his amber eyes. The sight of a fearsome, violent demon, trapped behind bars made of iron, bare-chested with a litany of scars, curving horns that cast shadows against his cheeks—it should have been unheard of. And yet, she could think of nothing more wondrous.

This demon—he wascryingfor her.

And she cried for him.

"You saved m-me," she repeated, voice thick and wet with tears. "I would not have made it here alone. It was… because of you—It was with you… that I was able to break free." Her words were not elegant, but they were enough.

He was the first to cross the invisible barrier between them.

A pinky reached out, and he skimmed it softly over the side of her hand, hooking it with her littlest finger. Her chin trembled as she watched their intertwined pinkies.

"Will you forgive me?"

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