There is nothing about Arlet I can’t handle.
“Arlet?” I try, my voice quieter than I mean it to be.
She doesn’t move.
I want her to wake up.
I want her to see the power she’s had over me since the moment we met, and watch as it soothes her soul.
“Firelocks,” I say next, testing her, wondering if irritation would bring her back faster.
Her eyelids flutter again.
A small victory.
I bite my lip, uncertain. I have never been one for comforting words or touches.
You already touched her and nothing happened...
But my skin made no contact with hers.
Instinct moves me. I reach forward.
I cup her cheek, fingers hovering before they touch warm, fragile skin, and hold my breath.
Her head tilts into my touch, her eyelids fluttering like the delicate wings of a moth. Something hot and territorial floods through me, pouring over my skull like molten gold.
It submerges me wholly, drowning me in something old andinstinctual—a feeling that I have no name for. Even now, in this fragile state,she knows me.
And physically, I am not cold for the first time in half a century.
My thumb brushes over the dusting of freckles, and I let my pointer finger trace one of the fine lines near her eye—the kind that lingers permanently from a lifetime of smiling. I like it. I like that it exists. That she has lived enough, felt enough, to have these faint traces of joy etched into her skin.
Suddenly, her eyes snap open.
I jerk my hand away, startled.
The flicker of hurt across her features nearly destroys me. What an unwelcome sight I must be.
She yanks at her bindings, her body tensing, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Then—her face twists and a broken sob rips from her throat.
“No. Please. Please. Remove the ropes.”
The panic in her voice slices through me. I don’t know what to do. I can’t fathom what is going through her mind, can’t bear the way she pleads.
Just moments ago, I was sure I was the one person who could help her—that my presence, my hands, could offer her some kind of peace.
Now? Now I’m the one tightening the ropes around her wrists and drowning her in a nightmare.
It’s a feeling that finds the severed heart in my chest—locked in a box, beating somewhere far away—and rips it in half all over again.
I need to fix this. I need to do something.
Frantically, my eyes search for the amethyst crystal they used in the throne room, desperate to put her back into the numb embrace of sleep. Anything would be better than this. Anything.
She cries again, and I abandon my search.
“Sh, sh,” I start to say.