Page 116 of Shadows and Flames
El sat up, and I missed his proprietary touches until he drew me into a longer kiss, this one with the slight slip of his tongue. He pulled away and rested his brow on mine, but even from here, I could feel his uncertainty. Almost, shyness? “We could—I have—” he growled to himself and pressed closer to me “—Leandro and I selected our first home in Banfas. When we were sworn into The Shadows. It is an apartment, but I inherited the building from my father. It is the closest place to Zonoras. Where it once stood.”
My eyes prickled, and I cradled El’s face in my hands. My Darkness tingled as I pet the sides of his temples. “I would be honored, Elián. We’ll start there.”
He exhaled, shoulders relaxing. “Thank you. É vahmo.”
Emotion filled those words to the brim, and he needn’t tell me what they meant. I swept my thumb in an arc over the hard line of his brow, down the slope into his hairline. “É vahmo.”
Tana checked her packs silently, but it was the type of quiet with an edge, a bite. With Francie back home and healing, our contract ended, I hadn’t realized this freedom would feel like a death, too.
Death of the time I spent with Tana. With her beside me every moment to guide me away from truly disintegrating. Her jokes and soft embraces. The words we could communicate with just a look. Never had I lived so openly with another person, so truly.
She’d volunteered to stay, but with her posture rigid and the harsh manner with which she stuffed the last of her things in a brown, leather bag, I was at a loss of what to say. How had I fucked this up?
“Um. Thank you. For staying to help Tomás.” Elián was with his brother, in the room on the other side of the wall. I tried my best to focus on Tana and not eavesdrop on the gruff bickering going on between them. Needless to say, Tomás was not in agreement with the plan we’d designed while he slept.
Tana paused, still not looking at me, before sighing. “There is no need to thank me. I have grown…well, affectionate is the wrong word. But, I don’t want to see the idiot die. And we’ve come this far.” She shrugged, like she wasn’t committing again to helping pull someone back from the crumbling edge of a cliff.
“Cera seems to be capable, though,” I said and immediately wanted to stuff the words back in my mouth when she flinched. “I—you’ve just—I would understand if you wanted to rest. A break. After… after everything.”
My cousin’s hair was growing out, like mine, and the curls formed a yellow fringe that sprung from the scarf she had tied around the rest of it. She glanced sideways at me. “I know how to make decisions for myself, Leen. I can help, learn again from the priestesses, and reconnect with my coven here in Nethras. I’ll inquire about a place to live more permanently, but for now, Cera has offered for me to stay with her.”
“Oh.” I cracked my knuckles and stuffed my hands in the pockets of my leather trousers. “Well, I’m glad this is where we ended up, then.”
Tana buckled and situated her packs on the edge of the small bed she’d remade this morning. Or had she not slept at all? Bags hung under her eyes, but she smelled freshly bathed, and she moved with a professional alertness.
I moved from foot to foot, not knowing what to say next, so I tried at a bit of humor. “And Fenix?”
She pouted her bottom lip, a gesture she typically made when she was confused, and it was then that I finally got her to fully look at me. “What about him?”
I swept my gaze and senses around the room, as if he was somehow hiding in the corner or under the bed when he was most likely sleeping the day away. With his infatuation with Tana, though, one could never be sure. “You know he’s besotted with you, right?”
She froze, slumped, then completely straightened. Her emerald eyes cast side to side while she thought, opening and closing her mouth several times.
“Erm, I suppose you didn’t know.”
Blood rushed to her cheeks, deepening the brown color there to a bright rust. “I don’t—he’s not?—”
I raised both hands. “All I’m arguing is that he wanted nothing to do with us, but after you saved his life, he followed us to another realm and back and is committed to stay in Nethras when there is absolutely no need. He volunteered to be a blood source from someone who I’m certain he still hates, at least a little bit, because it made your healing easier. Cera is here now and has summoned any nearby Rhaean priestess who can assist in Tom’s recovery, so there’s truly no need for his help. Fenix could go on his merry way, and yet, he’s dug in his heels. You really don’t see the way he looks at you?” Like she was the one who’d dug her hands in virgin soil and created the world.
Tana huffed, busying herself with straightening pillows and situating her packs again instead of addressing the obviousness of what Fenix felt for her.
I decided to let the subject lie. “Ah, so, I better get going.” I winced at the clumsy attempt at farewell.
A deep wrinkle remained between the light, arched brows on Tana’s face, but she pulled me into a quick, heavy embrace. I wanted to linger, to hold her to me, but she stepped back before I could even fully hug her to me. Before I turned, I blinked back tears, met her hard stare. “I love you, Tana. Thank you, for everything.” I couldn’t leave without saying that, at least.
Something sorrowful filled the air, like weeping rain, but she closed her eyes and shook her head, as if clearing the coming storm. “I love you, too, Leenie. Be safe.”
The ringing of what hadn’t been said screamed in my ears, but I was grateful for this mutual declaration. That through it all, even with the way I’d leaned on her to the point of taking advantage, she still loved me.
I left the room when Tana rejected my offer of help with her packs. The Rhaestran guards would be here any moment to help move her things, she said, and I honored her wishes, going to Tomás’s room and announcing myself to him and Elián with a knock of knuckle on wood.
“Oh, fantastic, your co-conspirator,” I heard through the door. When I pushed it open, Tomás was dressed and sitting in the wheelchair, arms crossed in outrage.
Elián dragged his hand over his face, pulling at his cheeks and rolling his eyes at the same time. “For the last time. You are in no condition to come to the Well.”
“And what if the boy is in trouble? Danger? She can’t even set foot on the grounds, you dolt!”
El said nothing to that, tensing of the muscles in his neck revealing an agreement with that concern. There was some truthto Cera’s snide critique of my conviction to accompany Elián, but I liked to think of it as confidence.
