Page 13 of Of Blooming Embers
Fucking void.
This was going to be a long journey.
Correction, it hadalreadybeen a long journey. Every moment alone with her was torture.
Being near her.
Her sweet scent caressing me.
Sleeping next to her among the grymwoods.
The impenetrable silence and unspoken words between us.
Often, the rarity of quiet moments in my days left me longing for them. However, her reticence was troubling. She was working through her newly resurfaced memories—the pieces slicing through her one after the other as they unearthed themselves.
Aching worry scurried over my skin, and my muscles tensed, my cock somberly settling in my breeches.
Throughout the last several days, she’d been ill-tempered and despondent. I couldn’t blame her. I wanted to take her pain away, but she didn’t want any help from me.
At least, not yet.
Probably never.
I sighed, shifting my pack and weapon on my back as I followed her out of the room. The weight of our footfalls plunked over the inn’s rickety steps as we descended.
Over the turns, the constant effort of evading the consequences of my choices had been exhausting.
Every day, the jagged pieces of regret wedged between my ribs, clawing at the bony cage and trying to dig in. Trying to pierce my heart and drown me in my own blood. My jaw tightened, fists strangling the leather of my baldric.
Oddly, a morbid sense of relief lined the soiled edges of my remorse and shame. Now that Seryn remembered everything—nowthat she was coming into her powers—a sense of something urgent and terrifying nipped at my heels.
I wanted her to tear my heart in two. Needed her to punish me for everything I’d done over the turns. Help me forget the fear and regrets I carried deep within my mind while everyone else’s conscience was wiped clean every spring at the end of the Dormancy.
My thoughts soured as Melina’s malevolent grin sliced into my thoughts, her cold, delicate fingers stroking over me whenever she pleased.
Uninvited.
Shewas in Surrelia, along with her lapdogs, Lucan and Ryboas. It was time for me to cut my leash. No longer would I bend to her whims.
To her cruelties.
Tomycruelties.
I swallowed, my windpipe dry. Brittle.
With Seryn and Kaden coming into their ember, a spark of—dare I say—hope was kindling within me. They weren’t as fragile as they once were and would only grow more capable over the coming turns.
They had to.
I rolled my shoulders, shifting my rucksack as we left the sleepy tavern.
Seryn peeked at me as I stood next to her on the boardwalk. The dawn painted the lynstone of the buildings in shades of peach and neon pink. She was radiant; the mortified flush on her face still lingered.
Growing up, I’d always been protective of her, as if she were my younger sister. She was all gangly limbs and mischief. However, over time, things changed. As a teenager, she’d sought me out more often, and I noticed her bashful glances frequently. It wasn’t until she’d turned eighteen that I truly began to see her as the beautiful, stubborn woman she had become. She ignited something deeper within me. As if I blinked and could no longer view her as I once had.
She wasmore.
I wondered if she remembered the first time we ever kissed two springs ago. The first time she’d come undone in my arms.
