Page 147 of A Curse of Hope and Shadows: Part I
He had not told Alexei quite what had happened, but he told him a watered down version of events. His cousin expressed his sympathies for them both, but declared it was probably for the best. He clapped him on the shoulder and tried to distract him with a game.
It did not work.
It’s for the best.
No future where he was not with her in some fashion could possibly befor the best.What was best for him was her. It always had been.
But he knew that he was probably not the best for her, no matter how much he loathed it.
And yet he could not wipe away the memory of the other night, could not weaken the hold of her lips on his, the mesmerising touch of her skin. He had thought he could bear the rest of his life if she would only stay beside him, but now he knew the agony of being with her and notbeing with herand it was one torture too many. He could not endure it. Every time her eyes refused to meet his, it was like being flayed, only he was losing something far more precious than skin.
I did not believe in souls until I knew you, until I felt myself being stripped down to the bone. Humans have souls welded to their suits of flesh, and mine is scarred with loving you.
For the first time he could remember, Adeline didn’t come to him. She didn’t ask him how he was. She didn’t ask him if he was all right. She must have known he wasn’t. Must have seen something in his twisted half face, like she always had. But she did not ask. She was afraid of the answer, knew that there was no balm for this wound.
He didn’t ask her, either.
We are broken and breaking and utterly destroyed.
He wanted to wind things back to the early days, when he liked her but didn’t love her, or when he loved her but didn’t know, to that brief perfect fraction of time where every second with her was like gold and sunlight, when the breeze of her smile sent his heart somersaulting.
Now everything was ice and lead and his heart felt like it was barely beating, incapable of ever being light again.
I will find a way of fixing this,he promised.I will make you smile again.
Alexei left at the end of the week. All the guests had gone now, apart from a strange lady who kept to the bottom floor and rarely left her chambers. Dimitri was too fraught to give her much thought or even try to remember who she was.
His father remained.
Go away,he begged him.Leave. No one wants you here.
If his father left, maybe, just maybe, Adeline would talk to him again. Maybe things could be almost like before.
He knew even then that it was a foolish hope.
Edvard Von Mortimer had not spoken to Dimitri since that night, at least not outside of company. His words had been civil and polite in front of the rest of the party, the ice in his eyes tempered. Perhaps he felt some shame at the incident that he couldn’t speak. He’d been drinking; Dimitri could smell it on his breath. Maybe his memory was muddled.
Maybe he’d hit him too hard.
Finally, when the house was empty, the Duke appeared in Dimitri’s chamber.
“You’re wondering, no doubt, why I returned at all.”
Dimitri turned his back. “I imagine there were political reasons I’m not privy to. A show of some kind. Honestly, Father, I can’t say I’m too intrigued.”
The Duke snorted. “There might have been some… political reasons,” he explained, “but I had another, more covert one.”
Dimitri raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“I found someone who thinks they might be able to assist with our… problem.”
“Wehave a problem?” Dimitri said incredulously. “That seems unlikely. I didn’t think we shared anything except a name.”
“We shareblood,” the Duke said, narrowing his eyes. “And that name, boy, is not to be sniffed at. We both have an interest in seeing it unbesmirched, seeing the house flourish—”
“Speak for yourself.”
“She thinks she can break your curse, Dimitri.”
