Page 59 of Burning Her Beautiful
I lift my head. “Miracle is two hearts finding harmony after war.”
He smiles faintly. “You speak like a poet.”
“I feel like one.” I shift, grinning as he hisses at oversensitive nerves. He chuckles, pressing a soft kiss to my brow.
Eventually we separate, nestling side by side among tangled linen. My head rests in the crook of his arm, a leg draped across his. The lantern glows low; I reach to extinguish it, but he catches my wrist.
“Leave the light,” he murmurs. “I want to see you.”
I comply, letting the flame dance across our interlaced forms. Silence settles—comfortable. Thoughts drift to tomorrow’s unknown. Tovor still plots. External kingdoms watch our shifts, ready to exploit weakness.
I voice the worry. “Change feels fragile as glass. One strike could shatter it.”
Varok tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “Glass anneals under fire. We faced the furnace already. Every challenge ahead will forge us stronger.”
“But the furnace heats again tomorrow.”
“Then we quench each other between the flames,” he says. “We rest now so strength returns.”
His faith steadies me. Yet I must speak my own vow. Rolling half-upright, I trace a rune on his chest. “If battle rises and you stand in its center, know I will walk beside you, not behind. Promise me you will not shield me from every blade. Let me raise my own.”
He folds my hand within his. “You have saved me more times than I can count.” His eyes gleam. “I vow to fight shoulder to shoulder. Your courage equals mine.”
Warmth blossoms. I lean to kiss the hollow below his jaw, tasting the salt of his skin. “Then fear retreats.”
We settle again—spent yet alert. Outside, the songs quiet as the barges dock. Stars wheel above the skylight. A shooting star streaks by; I mark its path, making a silent wish for peace.
“Tell me a memory of childhood,” I whisper, seeking a deeper weave.
He exhales, thinking. “A mountain ridge above the fortress where I trained. I snuck away one dawn and watched the sunrise turn the snow peaks rose-gold. In that stillness I felt small yet infinite. That color—the world breathing—stayed inside me long after battles dulled my senses.”
I smile. “Now you carry rose-gold again.” I brush the pendant’s glow against his chest. “Dawn lives here.”
He draws me tight. “And you—my perpetual sunrise.”
Sleep beckons, heavy and gentle. Before surrendering, I murmur, “Whatever tomorrow brings, remember tonight—proof that joy blooms even among ash.”
“I will remember,” he replies, voice thick with promise.
As lids close, I sense not an end, but a threshold. The intimacy we wove becomes an anchor for the storms ahead. Our bodies, our shared breath, our whispered truths—these form a map when the path darkens.
In half-dream I hear the resonance hum again, distant yet familiar. The song floats through the open skylight, carried by wind from river barges, rising and intertwining with the memory of our joining. It reminds me that every revolution, every law, begins first in hearts willing to beat in unison.
My hand seeks his in sleep, fingers threading. His grip closes reflexively. Two pulses sync once more. The candle gutters out, yet the room remains aglow, lit by the promise forged tonight—fierce, tender, unbreakable.
Outside, the first paling of the eastern sky hints at dawn’s arrival. The city stirs—crows calling, merchants stamping wagons into life. Conflict may shadow the horizon, but insidethis chamber, dawn has already risen, blazing brighter than the banners on palace walls.
I hold that light as sleep finally claims me, ready to carry it into the day that waits.
21
VAROK
Dawn paints the battlements copper as I stand on the outer terrace of the royal keep. The wind carries the last strains of the river singers’ hymn, notes that lifted Iliana and me through the night, but the harmony fades now beneath the weight of the drums pulsing from the Grand Court below. Those drums call every noble, every petitioner, and every sworn sword to assembly. The king demands judgment.
I roll my shoulders, easing leather across fresh bruises earned at the volcanic rim. The heat of yesterday still ghosts beneath the skin, a reminder of the fault we calmed and the fragile charter we won. Today’s test will not be molten rock; today the threat sits upon a throne of gold and obsidian, holding the power to strip everything we built with a single spoken command.
Bootsteps sound behind me. I turn as Iliana approaches, cloak swirling around an emerald dress. The moonlit tenderness of last night still echoes in her eyes, yet a veil of determination settles over that softness. The resonance stone at her throat pulses with faint blue light, reacting to the drums as if keeping time with an unspoken promise.
