Page 27 of Steeling Light (Shadowed Debts #3)

Darian, I don’t think I’ve ever been so lonely. The days are hard, but the nights are harder. I wonder if you’re sitting and watching the moon with me as I write this letter. Do you remember all the nights we sat at the Firelight Café together? I miss those nights. They were simpler times.

P.S. Mother and I had coffee, and I didn’t run away. You should be proud of me.

~Ainslee Emlyn, Letters to Darian

Ainslee

The days drag on. A week with nothing to do, nothing to look forward to. I walk through the city listlessly and consider going back to Stormhaven just to see Darian, Cole, and Maeve again.

Tonight, I’m sitting on the wall of the Keep of Calm as I watch the moon rise.

The two weeks I spent with Rhion had kept me distracted from thinking about Darian.

The tie between twins is always stronger than that of other siblings, but we’ve never stretched that line taut before.

Our lives have been interwoven since the day we were born.

Now, that line feels fragile. I’ve been gone for what feels like forever. There haven’t been any pranks. No stupid jokes or stories that barely even make sense. He hasn’t been here trying to convince me to do something Cole would be furious about.

There’s a silence in the evening air, even sitting above the City of Moonlight where everything happens once the sun goes down. The people below me mill about, but there’s a separation between us, and it only takes a few moments for me to realize why.

I don’t belong here. But do I really belong with Darian, Cole, and Maeve any longer?

I’m not like Cole and Maeve, who are driven to do these incredible things.

I’ve never been like them. I’m not even really like Darian.

He may not be trying to win a war on his own, but he always has some plan, some desperate need to stand out.

That isn’t me. Thoughts of Cadence’s words echo in my mind. You, Ainslee Emlyn, must find your spark. You must breathe life into it, and you must push back the winds of turmoil that will try to snuff it out. You, and no other, must become the Light.

And my father’s. You’re nothing. You’re worthless. A girl whose only value is to be a whore like her mother.

Everything inside me seems at war. Memories of the past. Dreams. Losing the connection I have with Darian. Underneath it all is a desperate need to see Rhion again. He’s been gone for an entire week, and my heart aches. After those two kisses, there’s no doubt about how I feel about him.

Not even thoughts of Cole’s anger deter me from lingering on thoughts of those kisses. Never before have I ever felt so alive. I’ve never shone so brightly. The emotions that coursed through me unchecked feel impossible.

Even now, when I think about that kiss, a bit of light leaves my body, glowing in the twilight. I can’t stop it.

So, instead of pacing and thinking, I’m sitting. These thoughts and emotions may be at war with each other, but deep down, I know I can’t leave Selithar yet. I can’t leave until Rhion comes back. The way we left things was too unfinished.

I need to feel him again. Once we leave Selithar, I don’t know when I’ll be able to talk to him, much less feel his body and hands and lips against mine.

The moon rises over the horizon, and I wonder why it always feels so much larger here. The city begins its nightly glow, and yet, I stare at the silvered light of the moon and ignore the city that was created just for nights like these.

Tonight, it’s only me and the moon in my world. A cool breeze blows from the north, a hint of the winter that’s taking the rest of Nyth. The edges of my pants flutter in it, and it slides up my leg, making the hair on my legs tingle.

I barely feel it. Right now, I don’t know if I’d feel much of anything. I certainly don’t feel the spider crawl across the rampart, onto my pants, and into my pocket.