Page 39 of Growing Memories (Valley of Sylveren #2)

“Because it failed me. I hurt you, and when I use it, I remember…” Eunny shook her head violently. “I remember that day. That fucking moment. I have to relive the feeling of you breaking apart beneath my godsdamned fingers every time I use it. I don’t know how you can stand there and not hate me.”

Ollas reached for her again, desperation in every motion, replaced by anguish when she leaned away. “I could never hate you. I don’t blame you, not for any of it.”

Eunny’s eyes burned with the threat of tears.

She blinked them away, shoulders slumping as she gazed at him.

No matter what she did, she ended up hurting him, and Ollas was so good, he still tried to take the blame.

Make her happy. Because he was all in, as he’d said.

He would never give up. Not of his own volition.

“You heard what I said to Gransen. I hurt you, Ollas. I haven’t forgiven myself for it. I don’t know that I ever will.” She pressed her palms against her face. “I fucked up in letting us— It was a mistake?—”

“It was my fault, Eunny.”

“What? No, it wasn’t.”

“I need you to remember,” he said, an earnest look back on his face.

Eunny stared at him.

“I need you to remember my part in it.” His voice went quiet. Somber. “I need you to remember, and love me anyway.”

“ Love you?” Eunny’s voice cracked.

“Yes,” Ollas said, and when he smiled at her, it held such sadness it could almost pierce the cloud of fear and remorse swirling around her. “If you can. If you ever could.”

Eunny raked a hand through her hair. “It’s not you— I mean, it is, but it’s not that I could never care about you as a person?—”

“I’d always hoped so,” he murmured. “But, maybe we can’t believe the best in each other. Not until we know the worst.”

“What are you talking about? Ollas, you’re the best person?—”

“It’s my fault you lost control of your magic,” he said, an edge to his tone. “Having the seeds on me, letting you heal me even though?—”

“I’m the one who insisted!”

“I touched your magic, Eunny. I wanted to know what you felt like,” he whispered. “Just once. Because I knew you’d never look at me twice. Not like that.”

Eunny glared at him, hand slicing through the air as she indicated the two of them. “So much for that theory, you dipshit.” Frustration had her grinding her teeth. “You aren’t safe around me?—”

“I love you. I’ve been in love with you forever,” Ollas said, voice soft, imploring. “It kills me that you are still in pain because of what I did. If you can’t believe my words, then I need you to remember what I did.”

Eunny didn’t realize that she’d been inching away, her head shaking in vague denial, until she bumped against the antechamber’s door. She yanked it open and fled.

Ollas made no sound to stop her.

“Get over here, Nev.”

Ollas complied, trying to hide the tremble in his limbs.

He hoped Eunny would attribute it to his injuries rather than the mix of nerves and giddiness at her nearness coursing through him.

Though pain erupted from a dozen points along his body, the moment she laid a glowing golden hand on him, everything began to recede.

Like kneading a knotted muscle, her magic seeped into the wound on his arm and pressed, relieving some of the fire.

Yet, Eunny’s magic wavered. It was not sparse or ribbony like Ollas’s own pitiful gift, which had never been strong or plentiful, but weakened with exhaustion.

While she could take some of the sting out of his arm, the wound itself remained unchanged, her magic lingering just below the surface of his skin.

“Eunny,” he murmured.

She was muttering to herself, eyes closed, dark hair plastered to her cheeks from the heavy rain. Her light brown skin was ashen, weariness stealing the energy he was so used to seeing in her face. Her fingers shook as they tensed around his forearm.

He hated to see her in such a state. Knew she’d been stretching herself thin trying to patch everyone up.

He should’ve refused when she’d beckoned him over.

But he hadn’t, and years of knowing one another meant he knew she’d be too stubborn to admit defeat now.

She needed help, but the Coalition’s delegation hadn’t seen fit to bring a mender along who specialized in direct healings.

There wasn’t even another light mage who could act as a power source.

Ollas blinked, mind skipping along that train of thought.

All magic had been derived from the Goddess Syvrine’s light, or so the legends said, before breaking off to the various specialties.

In his grovetending, sometimes Ollas, with a nudge from his own weak magic, had been able to get an enchantment to take hold by bridging the arcane essence inherent in a plant with that of the spellwork.

Normally, a mender of Eunny’s skill wouldn’t need his assistance, even though her specialization lay in mixing healing blends and remedies, but tired as she was now?

Surely, any help he could give wouldn’t go amiss.

And… he would get to feel her magic. The shape of it.

Would know the taste of Eunny’s light as it intertwined with his, if only just for a moment.

He’d likely never get such a chance again.

“Eunny,” Ollas mumbled.

“What, Nev? I’m trying to think here,” she muttered back. Her jaw tensed as she struggled to channel more of her light.

“Let me help.” Timidly, Ollas placed his free hand on top of hers just enough for the tips of their fingers to overlap. “I can try to guide you…”

Ollas reached for his light, managing to draw up a few flickering dots. He felt Eunny’s magic respond, a line rising to wrap around his little sparks. It drew more, created a strange binding as Eunny’s magic sank back into his flesh.

The wound on his arm went numb. Then cold, so cold it throbbed.

His arm lay folded over his chest, and beneath it, dozens of spots of heat lit up.

They seared through the fabric of his shirt and cloak, enveloping his skin.

Fire spread across his wound, turning the icy pain to a burn.

It felt like a hundred tiny brands against his skin, concentrated around one spot on his chest ? —

The seed packet he’d been examining in the tent. The one he’d carelessly stuck in his pocket before racing out to answer the horn calls.

It made no sense; they hadn’t registered as anything magical when he’d reached out. But now, something had woken. Was wrapping like a fist around his magic, dragging erratic, weak sparks from his inner sphere that tangled with the lines of Eunny’s magic.

She fought back. Ollas couldn’t explain it, but he felt her resist the invisible hand pulling the snarl of their magic out.

She lost the battle. Her mental grip weakened, and a blaze of arcane heat flashed across Ollas’s body. Every muscle seized, a scream lodging in his throat. When darkness finally claimed him, it was a blessing.