Page 84 of While the Dark Remains

“I don’t know why you don’t hate me,” he says. “Why don’t you hate me?”

“Because you are a good person, Ballast Vallin, whatever you might think.” The words stick in my throat. I believe them of him; I want to believe them of me, too. “And because you are my friend.”

His eyes are wet, his hand warm against my cheek. “Brynja,” he says. “Can I kiss you?”

I am hot and cold, wild and still, a maelstrom of emotions that narrow down to one I can understand. I want this. I wanthim.

“Yes,” I whisper. “Gods, Bal, yes.”

He looks at me with such intensity my insides go all to jelly, and then he dips his head and his lips find mine, hesitant, soft. I kiss him back, careful and a little unsure, my heart raging inside me. His mouth is warm and wet. He tastes of salt and tea and something untamed that I yearn to know more of.

The stone is cold at our backs; the river rushes steady beyond it, its music echoing in my very soul.

Our kiss deepens, turning feral. His unshaven cheek scrapes against my smooth one, and his lips become fire, desperate and wild. His hands are in the tangle of my newly grown hair; mine are around his shoulders, pulling him harder against me. I can’t bear that there is yet space between us. I need him closer.

Blue sparks suddenly before my eyes as magic rushes into me, exploding in my mind, ripping me to pieces.

I jerk away from Ballast with a half-swallowed scream. Blue dances still in the field of my vision, and the pain sears.

He’s breathing hard, his eyes unfocused, his fingers still wound in my hair. “What is it?” he gasps. “What’s wrong? I’m sorry if I—I thought you wanted—”

“I do.” My eyes are hot with tears. “But I can feel your magic, Bal. It’s bursting out of you. It burns.”

“Violet Lord,” he curses. “I’m sorry.” He cups my face with his hands, trembling.

I’m shaking, too, and desperately blinking back my tears. “Don’t be sorry.” I look at him in utter misery. I want to pull him close again. I want his skin on mine, I want to feel the hard and soft planes of him. But his magic terrifies me.

We hold each other for a while in the dark, my head tucked under his chin, his hands tracing slow circles on my back. His heartbeat calms me, pulsing under my ear, but it breaks me, too. My tears soak through his shirt.

I don’t want to leave him here alone when we reach the end of the tunnels. I don’t want to leave him at all. I want to kiss him again but not in the dark. In the light of the blazing sun.

I lift my head after a while, and we study each other in the torchlight, the river lapping quietly at its stony bank.

“Stay with me,” he says. “Please. I don’t—I don’t think I can bear to be without you.”

My heart wrenches. “I can’t stay, Bal.”

“Why? Saga doesn’t need you.”

“I need to go home. I need to find my family again.”

He traces the line of my collarbone with one finger, and I shiver. “When you’ve found them, then. Will you come back for me?”

I can hardly think around the hard pulse of my heart. “I don’t want to make any promises I can’t keep.”

“Then keep it,” he says.

The river rushes on, soft and steady.

“I can try and hold it back,” says Ballast. “My magic.”

My breath hitches. “Yes,” I whisper.

And then he is crushing me once more against him, his mouth wild and wanting on mine. I feel him reining in his power, or attempting to. It’s there just beneath the surface, ready to ignite. Magic sparks on my tongue, burrows into my mind. All is blue, all is heat. Our kiss is a living thing, bound between us, barely contained. I don’t think I want to contain it. His magic grows stronger as he loses hold of it. It burns me, eating me up from the inside. But I don’t care. I want him closer, I need him closer. I—

Steps sound on the stone, and I come back to myself in a rush, jerking away from Ballast.

I gulp air in desperate mouthfuls, feeling wildly disoriented. Ballast’s eyes are unfocused, and he’s breathing hard, too. “Brynja,” he says, soft as a prayer.

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