Page 23 of Steeling Light (Shadowed Debts #3)

There is a time and a place for everything. Trying to move faster doesn’t get you there sooner. It only creates heartache and worry. Eat when it is time to eat. Rest when it is time to rest.

~Maerlix the Master Listener, Words to Weavers

Rhion

She’s magnificent. The wind trails over her wings, and she holds them stiff, cutting through the air like a ship through still water.

Dressed in her underclothes, long since dried, she draws my eyes constantly.

The flimsy material that barely hid her body from me is a dark shadow in the night’s sky, and my eyes shift, becoming an owl’s.

I can see every ripple of her feathers, every movement of that linen.

We’re not hurrying. My wings beat only fast enough to stay aloft as we circle the City of Moonlight and see it from the sky.

I told her she was my heart tonight. It’s a truth I’ve never spoken aloud and tried so desperately to keep from thinking.

I’d never believed that she’d ever feel the same.

I’d hoped, but if my life has taught me anything, it’s that hope is for fools.

She’s quiet now, and I wonder what she’s thinking about.

Part of me wants to analyze our actions and try to make a guess at it, but I push that part away.

If she wanted me to know what she was thinking, she’d tell me.

Fear that it was only the pool’s effect, now long gone, that made her kiss me back convinces that part of me from taking hold as it does so often.

If I were to pick her actions and words apart, that fear being true might be the conclusion I come to.

So I remain quiet beside her, letting the wind be our companion. It whispers softly to us as we cut through the air. Until she speaks.

“I can’t believe you threatened him,” she says a little quieter. “Would you really bring your soldiers here just to hurt that man from the House of Calm?”

I don’t answer immediately. The words had come instinctively.

I’ve learned to trust those instincts, but I’ve lived in a world that’s so different from Ainslee’s.

“If my father realized that you and I were going to the Moonlit Pools together, he would unleash the might of the Steel army on us both, and to be completely honest, I don’t know if I could stop him.

The best way to protect you right now is to make sure no one knows we’re spending time together like that.

Fear was my only option unless you’d prefer me to murder him in cold blood as soon as he saw us. ”

She finally turns to me, taking her eyes off the city below us. “How do you even know that he recognized you until you flew? We’ve been walking around the city for more than a week, and you haven’t threatened anyone else.”

Ainslee doesn’t know how much attention I’ve paid to every face we’ve passed.

Like I told her initially, she draws every eye, and no one knows who she is.

I’m an afterthought when I’m next to her.

But I know the look when they recognize me.

I know the shock and fear in even the most controlled expressions.

I’ve lived with those expressions for my entire life, and that man was afraid as soon as he’d seen my face.

“He knew me immediately, Ainslee.”

She’s quiet again. Her lack of response tells me enough to know that she doesn’t believe me.

There’s nothing to say, though. Instead, I think back on that kiss that I’ve dreamed of my entire life. She exploded with light because of it. Not a little glow. It was uncontrolled and told me everything I needed to know.

She didn’t want the kiss to end. I’d been wrong to be afraid to kiss her. I’d been wrong to believe that kissing her would change our relationship in ways I was terrified of. Now that I’m thinking clearly without magical influences, I know that our interruption needs to be an ending.

Nothing has changed. In only a few weeks, our month will be over, and everything will return to the way it was before. That kiss was everything I’ve dreamed of. That has to be enough. Anything more, and it will make leaving so much more painful.

“Thank you,” I say without thinking.

She turns to me again, and a frown creases her brow. “For what?”

I chuckle. “For being you. For showing me what it would be like if dreams were real.”

“What do you mean?”

And this time, it’s me who doesn’t answer. In the silence, we fly and exist. This is a night that I’ll never forget. Sometimes, the closest two people can be is simply reveling in silence because no words could make the moment better.

I just wish that the night could last forever.