Page 43 of Taken
I tell myself this is ritual, not romance.
I tell myself the math of the prophecy all over again.
The logic that I cling to in order to soothe my guilt.
Zareth plus human equals the power to control the tide.
I tell myself I am doing what must be done.
Then I see her, and every calculation flees my brain like collateral damage from a tsunami.
She walks down the aisle like a small, terrible, glorious wave.
A vision carved from thousands of shades of the sea. Deep indigo that slides to pale cerulean at the hems, a spray of pearls at her throat that glitters like dawn.
The fabric clings and floats in equal measure, echoing foam and current, as if the cloth itself remembers waves it has never ridden.
Her hair—sandy, sun-sprayed—frames her face like an honest halo.
When she looks at me, there is no glittering glee, no triumphant submission.
There is sadness—wary, with a sharpness that didn’t exist before.
The kind you give the world when it hastakenfrom you andnot given in return.
And my chest tightens in response.
She’s not wrong to feel this way.To hate me.
I have stolen her normalcy, dragged her from the monotony of her ordinary life and tricked into an ancient ritual—and the weight of it all thuds against my ribs.
Phoebe doesn’t have to hate me.
I hate myself for doing it this way.
I hate the part of me that measures sacrifice and decides the human cost is bearable.
I promise—under my breath, half to myself and half to the moon—that I will make it right.
That I will pay for every stolen moment with kindness.
I will make it my business toearnher.
The high priest intones.
The hall hushes like the breath just before a wave breaks.
His voice is older than my runes, a thread that pulls at the memory of oaths made and broken by those who wore my father’s helm.
He traces the sign, three strokes that sound like surf upon shell.
A hush of current threads through the assembled throng when she stands before me.
The silk under her skirts pools like water that refuses to run away.
In her eyes, I read the same things I smelled in the reefs earlier this morning.
Fear, uncertainly, but also a bloody human dignity that pricks at me where my armor is too thin.
