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Chapter Thirty-Three: Rhea

“Come on, Sunshine. Take it off,” Nox begs a few days later from where we lay on our sides facing each other, his arms wrapped tightly around me as he holds me to his very warm and very naked chest. “Please?”

Kissing the skin above his heart, I throw my leg over his hip in an attempt to distract him. We both slept in later than usual this morning, and when the smattering of sunlight eventually warmed my face through the windows, making my eyes flutter open, I couldn’t fight the urge to touch him. To let my fingers trail over every perfect square inch of him as a reminder that he was here with me. I had expected that he would wake up hungry to take advantage of our slow morning, but training with my magic appeared to be the only thing on his mind.

“Why can’t we train with the pendant on? Since that is how I’ll be for the majority of the time.”

“Because that wasn’t the deal we made when I spelled that little necklace.” Pulling back, he looks down at me, his brow raised in emphasis.

“Did you know that you’re very handsome?” I ask him sweetly, batting my eyelashes as I attempt to change the subject.

“Yes, and I believe you called me out on that awareness in a scathing letter.”

I scoff, pushing a hand at his chest as he lowers his head towards me. “That letter was not scathing . Though perhaps it would be a good idea to knock your ego down a few notches, Prince .”

His chuckle is a caress of velvet, and I can feel the curl of his lips at my ear when he breathes, “I do love when you call me that.”

My thin undergarments do nothing to obscure my desire for him or his responding want of me as I push myself closer. He presses soft kisses to my jaw and my neck, a hand sliding into my hair to cradle the back of my head.

“Rhea.”

“Yes?” I rasp, my fingers digging into his firm muscles and heart rate rising with each quick peppering of his lips.

“No more until we practice your magic,” he murmurs against my neck.

Groaning, I fling myself onto my back and stare at the wooden beams of the ceiling above. The morning birds sing and chatter outside, providing the only sound in the room until Nox asks a question I hoped he wouldn’t.

“What are you afraid of?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” I snap before squeezing my eyes shut. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” he says gently. Too gently.

It sends fissures through a remaining wall I know I shouldn’t have, but one that is there so that I don’t have to think too deeply about what I’ve done. I can begin to grant myself forgiveness for the way Bella and Alexi died because I finally realize that it wasn’t my hands that carried their blood. The same cannot be said for the two guards whose lives were drained in an instant by my shadows.

“Your shadow magic saved us that night, Rhea. It bought us time for you to heal me. It protected us when I couldn’t. Those are not bad things, just as that half of your magic isn’t inherently bad.”

I shake my head and open my eyes to look at him. “My life is worth no more than anyone else’s, let alone the lives of two people who were just following orders.”

Nox sits up, the expanse of his tanned skin fully on display as he grips onto the dark green comforter. “Your life is infinitely more valuable. For a multitude of reasons. You cannot hold the choices that others make against you as a moral measurement. If it comes down to your life or someone else’s, you have to choose yourself. Every time.”

I join him in sitting, only a thin silk lavender chemise covering my body. “You can’t ask me to do that,” I argue, my hand reaching up to clutch the tiny stone dragon.

Nox huffs, but his eyes sharpen into daggers, the silver in them intensifying. “I absolutely can and will ask you to protect yourself. And to kill, if need be, in order to do so. Would you not ask the same of me?”

Our chests heave in tandem as my gaze falls, tears lining my eyes before I blink them away. “Of course I would,” I relent.

His finger gently hooks under my chin and pushes up until my bright green eyes find the cooler gray of his. “Don’t ask me to not want the same for you. Being prepared to protect yourself is not the same as agreeing to end lives at the first chance given. You still have free agency—you still have autonomy over those decisions—which is all I want for you. To have a viable choice. But not training with your magic isn’t freedom, Rhea, it’s just another cage.”

I try to force my resolve to harden, but a small part of me knows Nox is right. Selene had even expressed the same urgency to not simply train but to train my magic fully. I know that I need to have more than one way to protect myself. But we have time—time for me to slowly build up to working with that magic. Time for me to reconcile with the death I caused and to be absolutely sure that I won’t accidentally do something like that again.

“I am not ready to touch the dark magic yet. I want to learn how to manipulate elements and heal more efficiently and defend myself. I can do that with only the light magic. At least for now.”

He takes a moment to answer but then concedes. “For now,” he echoes. “Before you take the necklace off, I’m going to cover you in a shield of my magic. The pendant has been suppressing your power for a few days, and it might overwhelm you at first.”

“Great,” I mutter, earning a chuckle from him. I wait until his magic surrounds us both before I steady my fingers and unclasp the necklace. Handing it to him, I hold my breath and wait for my power to wash over me. Yet nothing happens. “I don’t think—”

As if the gates guarding my magic have been forced open, a warm sensation followed by piercing cold begins to unfurl within me. My body goes rigid, and my vision blurs, air nothing but a plea from my screaming lungs as my jaw locks. My ears pound with a vicious drumming while terror bleeds into my veins. Nox’s face is in front of mine, but I can’t understand what he’s saying as my surroundings bleed to a shade of gray. The memory of my shadows unleashing in the Middle pushes to the forefront of my mind, and I immediately look down at my hands, noticing how one glows black and the other white. They flicker, like flames of a candle dancing in a rogue breeze.

It’s happening again. I’m going to lose control. I’m going to hurt Nox or worse. There will be no redemption for me then.

“You are okay. You are not hurting me.” Nox gradually comes into focus, his body illuminated by the dark glow of his magic. I shake my head, fear keeping my voice locked tightly in my throat. He repeats himself more slowly, grasping just above my hands and holding them up in front of me. “Look, Rhea. You aren’t hurting me.”

I stare, and I stare, my heart furiously pounding against my bones though I swear I can also hear a calmer echo of the sound in my ear. The stable rhythm gives me something soothing to focus on.

“There you go, love, breathe . Like me.”

The grayscale vision begins to retreat as I force air in and out to the pattern Nox sets, his steadfast presence preventing me from sinking back into the panic. When the rise and fall of my chest is less like I’m sprinting, he releases my hands. My magic feels swollen inside me, like an overfilled cup with nowhere for the extra to flow. I must voice that out loud because Nox nods his head.

“You need to expel some of your magic.”

“You know what this feels like?” I rasp.

His hand cups my cheek, and he brushes his thumb gently over it. “Think of our magic as water that is nestled in a well deep within us. Expelling that magic is like lowering a bucket into the well and taking water out. Our bodies then replenish what is taken. For most in the kingdom, that happens slowly. A few have the ability to replenish small amounts fairly fast. For me and, I suspect, you, our wells get replenished instantaneously. But it’s not a perfect system. Our magic is tied into our very lives, and we use small amounts without realizing we have.”

Nox removes his hand from my face and extends both arms out to his sides. Without so much as a twitch of his eye, he removes the barrier around me and expands his magic out to coat every crevice of the room.

“Now imagine that you blocked access to that well but water was still being replenished within it. Once you remove that barrier, the water is going to come rushing out with force. That’s what happened when we took the necklace off. Your magic overflowed .”

“So what do we do now?”

“Now, you need to expel what’s been pent up, and to do that, I’m going to tell you the first thing we’re taught when we begin our magic training— magic goes where intention flows . It means your mind is the key to controlling your magic. Think about when you healed Bella, when you healed me. What were you visualizing in those moments? What were you seeing in your mind?”

My thoughts had been frantic and— No. No , I had been focused. “I pictured my magic flooding into your bodies and healing you both. Replenishing blood and closing up veins.”

“Exactly, Sunshine. Your magic obeyed your call because, in those moments, your intention was so abundantly clear. It’s the same thing when we are manipulating elements or using our magic to imbue items. If you’re truly set on not using your shadow magic, then focus wholly on the other one. Try letting it flood out into the room. You don’t need to guide it to do anything other than fill the space like mine has.”

His instruction seems way less daunting to manage. So I close my eyes and reach for those tendrils of bright white healing light. Continuing on with Nox’s well metaphor, I imagine a divider splitting the vessel holding my magic into two halves. I shut out the shadow half and, instead, let the light half pour out.

“Slowly. Good . Visualize your magic nestling onto mine. Layering on top of it.” I do, feeling that invisible pressure within me lessen more and more with each passing moment. “Open your eyes.”

“Stars above,” I whisper with a gasp as I look around Nox’s room. Glittering white and resplendent purple make the room shine like we’re lost in a sea of stars. Our magic pulses together, two heartbeats settling into perfect rhythm. “It’s beautiful.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this.” It’s the awe in his voice that draws my gaze back to him. “Normally, when there are two magics present, they don’t react like this. They try to repel each other, but our magic seems to—”

“Blend together,” I interject, smiling at him, his face lit with the white glow of the magic in my palms.

“Exactly. Now, sever your control. Like a pair of scissors slicing through thread, guide your intention into releasing your magic.”

I close my eyes again and sense my magic, the way it all anchors back to me even from the farthest corners of the room. With a deep breath, I imagine letting it all go, as if the tide of my magic has pulled away from me until there is nothing left. When I open my eyes again, the room is back to normal.

“Do this as often as you can so that your magic doesn’t get too pent up,” Nox suggests, his fingers tucking strands of hair behind my ear. “I don’t say this nearly often enough, but I’m so proud of you, Sunshine.”

A nervous laugh bubbles out of me as I drop my gaze to my lap. “Why?” I wasn’t doing anything but scratching the surface of what someone my age should be able to do.

“Because of how brave you are. It would be so easy for you to not want to experience new things, to not want to try and push yourself. But you do, and getting to watch you shatter the invisible barrier that has been kept around you for so long…” I look back to him when his voice catches, and he has to work a swallow down before continuing. “It only makes me fall deeper in love with you.”

“Nox.” Craving his touch, I push the blanket off of me and crawl onto his lap. His scent and warmth cradle me, but it’s his words and heart, the way he so effortlessly breathes life and love into me, that make me feel like maybe I can accomplish anything.

Home. He’s home.

“I can only do those things because of you.”

“No. These are not my victories to claim. They are yours. Let them fuel you like a different source of sustenance, one that will remind you of how far you’ve come. You are incredible, Rhea. I’ve known it since the very first moment I laid eyes on you.”

And what could I even say to that? How could I respond with anything other than a display of how much he sustains me? So I kiss him, and when my body demands more, I slowly undress him. And when we are finished and Nox carries me to the shower, I tell him how much I love him. Over and over again.