Page 55 of Saved By Starlight
“That is how I should have greeted you when we met. I have days of kisses to make up for.” I roll up the furs and sling the cloak around my shoulders.
Lena tilts her head. “Why aren’t you being mean today?”
I am. She just doesn’t know it yet. Shifting the furs to free up one hand, I grip her jaw, lifting her chin to better see the evidence of my claiming bite. “Because you’re mine now. You can’t leave me, so I must treasure you, pet. It brings me joy.”
Her lips curve up. “I see you’ve come around on the pet thing.”
I plunder one more kiss. “I understand now the deep satisfaction of caring well.” And I understand the torture of failing in that, but I keep that thought to myself. Because I can withstand torture. I’m not sure I can withstand happiness. It is too bright for me.
When I was a greenling, my father’s advisor took us out into the grasslands to teach us some of the old ways. When heshowed us how to make fire with tili fluff and okkik tar, that bright little flame looked like magic. I still had my milk teeth, too young to know better, and I stupidly reached out a finger to touch it.
My brother Nik knocked me to the ground just before I burned myself. In that moment, I thought he was being cruel. Keeping me from a valuable experience, stealing perfection from me and replacing it with dust-flavored shame.
“It would hurt,” he said sullenly when I complained.
It hurt anyway, I remember thinking.If either way is painful, why not have a beautiful hurt?
It was years later that I realized he’d saved me from a flame-shaped scar.
The scar Lena would leave couldn’t fit on my finger. It’s the shape of a goddess. The shape of everything. And that is why I’ll endure the torture of her unhappiness when I take her away from here. That pain is nothing.
During firstmeal, I drown myself in nomo to soothe my restless pigment, avoiding my uncle’s smug gaze that darts between Lena’s neck and me. “You seem well today, nephew,” he says.
As Nik taught me, pride is a disease best cured with a dose of cruelty. “I suppose anyone would seem well to a male as old as you.”
Oljin chuckles, raising his cup like I told a joke. “You would be right. But you must acknowledge I was right, too. It’s easier now, isn’t it?”
“Certainly,” I lie, tea bitter on my tongue. It won’t be easy to watch myself take things from my Alara one by one. Her friends, her safety, her sister. Her pride. Her purpose. And in return, she gets the points of my teeth. What a bargain.
Under the table, I find her hand. Interlacing my fingers with hers, I enjoy the brief glance of affection she bestows beforeresuming her discussion about the Hatching with Rose. I wish she’d look at me again. I need to soak up every bit of sweetness while it lasts. I doubt she’ll ever look at me the same way again after today.
“Thank the goddess you’ve seen reason,” Oljin murmurs into his cup. “I feared you were a lost cause. Did you ever study Jara Neknir in the scrolls? He was eighth dynasty, I think. His Alara’s parents kept them apart because they thought she was too young to join with him. By the time she came of age, he’d gone mad.”
“You think they were wrong to keep a greenling from the furs?” I scoff, disgusted with him and the generations of scholars who undoubtedly perpetuated this thinking. With Alioth herself for selecting a girl to be Neknir’s fated queen. “They weren’t the ones who were wrong.”
“You think the goddess erred?”
“Even a goddess makes mistakes.”
Beside me, Lena tenses, her fingers tightening in mine. I’d thought she was too involved in her conversation with Rose to eavesdrop, but she clearly overheard us.
Oljin huffs an irritated breath. “There was no risk in letting them join. Neknir would have waited until she was ready before he took her to the furs. Her parents should have known that.”
“They were just supposed to turn her over and trust him?!” Lena blurts out, cheeks even paler than usual. Her lower lip is trembling, and I hate it. I don’t want to know what happened to her to make her look this way.
Oljin nods, reaching to skim his fingers along Rose’s jaw before returning his attention to us. “It was safe for her in the palace. A Jara cannot hurt his Alara.”
“That’s not true,” Lena says, her grip on my hand is relentless, crushing. “He could have, even if it wasn’t intentional. They had no way of knowing what he might do. They weren’t in the wrong because they wanted to protect her.”
“The goddess would have protected her.” Oljin frowns, angry pigment patchworking his cheekbones. “Isn’t that so, nephew?”
Who does he think he’s speaking to? I may wear a priest’s cloak, but I don’t suckle on Alioth’s golden tits. I doubt the goddess ever heard my prayers. If she had, she wouldn’t have given me an Alara.
“I don’t pretend to know Alioth’s will. Her teeth are sharp.” It’s a pat answer, but a true one. It’s certainly not a kindness that Lena was matched with me, the one who’ll prove that a Jaracanhurt his fated one. I hate that Lena’s the one who has to live with me. How will she ever look at me with anything but fear and resentment?
Oljin rolls his eyes, his lips peeling back from his teeth in disgust. “They didn’t protect her. They condemned her to life as the mate of a mad king.”
“The goddess condemned her to that, not her parents,” Lena argues, earning my entire heart in one sentence. It is the goddess punishing me, not her. I relinquish her hand to squeeze the back of her neck, drawing her to me for another searching kiss.
