I’d never known that bliss and torture could be one and the same. Not until I caught fire and disintegrated beneath the heart-splitting familiarity of his touch, his claiming hands at my cheek and hip. His taste, the crisp sweetness, both poisoned and revived.

He was the antidote to the wasting soul inside me, but he was also the cause of its slow demise.

Fire scorched a trail up my throat in the form of untamable, snide words. I tore free, gasping, “The touch of your lips won’t erase what another’s has done.”

Rorn froze, and it was all I needed to drift into mist, to leave him alone and grappling with the double meaning of what I’d said.

EIGHT

Aster

There was nothing subtle about heartbreak.

It crawled through the walls, chased me outdoors—neither sun or rain able to change the way it discolored everything.

In the weeks since I’d returned from Vordane, I’d learned the decaying of a heart could touch the entire world. Its power was such that even those around me would often tense in discomfort.

Theenon began to check on me less frequently. When he did, I’d do my best to tame my emotions, to keep him from stiffening to stone while he awaited the same refusals from me.

As the days dwindled forward to carry us into a future too uncertain to find ourselves grateful for, the heartbreak began to morph into something new yet equally as deadly. Longing had tangled with sorrow, and the sorrow welcomed a need I couldn’t quench.

I’d thought it would lessen. I’d expected each passing day and night away from Scythe to help deliver me toward something resembling relief. Instead, the restless and listless cycle of want and sadness repeated every minute of every hour of every day that slipped away into the void.

While lost to the flat brush strokes of his wolf’s mane upon the easel before me, I half-wondered if the growing burn within my chest would worsen when met by the slow-traveling ache within my bones.

A risk, I knew, to wound Rorn further should he discover what I’d given into—the recreation of my vengeance. I didn’t dare paint his face, the long dark hair, the moss green eye and those full, soft lips. Nor did I dare spill his blinding, wolfish grin and the way it lit his eye onto the parchment.

The mere thought of doing such a thing—of seeing him when I could never again truly see him—weakened my knees and squeezed my lungs in a vise of my own making.

No, denying myself wasn’t merely to protect Rorn, who didn’t deserve as much.

It was self-preservation.