Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(81)

“Are you saying Dramin is behind a cloud?”

“No, I’m saying Dramin has found his warmth. Maybe he has moved past the cloud and found a sanctuary in his own T?uha, lying together with his wife. Together for an eternal life of perfection and bliss.”

It was a bittersweet happiness, but one I let overwhelm me. It was a good thought, a beautiful picture, for a man who very much deserved it.

“I can accept that,” I said, wiggling myself over the sand, nestling myself against Ilyan’s chest.

Lying there, he ran his fingers over my skin while mine traced the deep scars that crisscrossed over his chest. I had followed them so many times before that they were memorized now. Their movements, intersections, and odd imperfections were already a perfect map in my mind.

He gasped, shivering beneath me as the same passion that I was feeling began to affect him.

“Did I ever tell you that that tickles?” Ilyan asked.

“No,” I replied with a laugh. “That makes me want to do it more, you know.”

“Then maybe I should have told you that long ago.”

I sighed, never ceasing in the gentle touch against his chest, letting my mind run free and calm.

We lay like that, forgetting all the troubles and doom and losses of the world we had left behind. But, as always, we both knew that this could not last forever. Not yet.

“Someday, it will,” Ilyan said, answering a question that really didn’t exist between us. “Someday, this will be our every day, and there will be no wars, no more blood, no more death.”

“You say that like it’s a daydream.”

“To me, it is,” he responded, his voice suddenly strained. “I have been lost in this war for hundreds of years, my darling. To me, the future beyond can only be a daydream.”

“What if I make it a reality?” I asked, knowing the weight of what that really meant, knowing the impossibility of what was before us.

“What if we do it together?” Ilyan asked, his soft touch leaving, replaced by a strong palm against my back. The weight was pleasant and warm as he pushed me into him, my arms and legs tangling around his in a comfortable pretzel against the sand.

“I would like that.” I sighed as his magic swarmed into me with that same unparalleled power you could only find in the T?uha. I gasped at the impression and the raw vulnerability that filled me.

“Then perhaps you will finally allow me to show you my house. Your real house, not that one.”

I couldn’t restrain the laugh. He had been trying to get me to visit the house on the beach for months. I was certain it would be as clear in the T?uha as it was in reality, but that didn’t matter.

I wanted to see it within the real world. There were too many parallels in my life, sights of the total futures that were unsure, T?uhas that let me live in the daydream that Ilyan longed for.

But that moment—walking into that house that Ilyan had built for me, for us, and for our eternity—I wanted it to be real. Not something from the confusing spaces that my life had given me, that my magic had created for me. Not sight, not T?uha.

“Yes,” I said with a laugh, pulling away to look him in the eye, those bright blue eyes that danced with the love that had been missing lately. “When we create this reality, then you can show me.”

He didn’t smile, although his eyes were happy.

He held me close, his face glowing with an immense love as he moved his thumb over my back, each swipe of his skin against mine sending the same intense ripple of need over me.

I knew what was coming.

“Kiss me,” I begged, knowing it would be more than the tickle of his lips against mine this time.

It was.

It was strong and powerful. It was skin against skin. It was his tongue dragging over my lower lip as his hand tangled in my hair. It was his gasp in my ear as I kissed his neck. It was my giggle as he tickled mine.

“Ilyan,” I sighed as I pulled myself away.

A small groan rippled deep inside his throat, the desire clear.

The desire was the same as had filled me.

However, I could already feel the dream shattering. I could already feel reality pressing against my chest. Some invisible clock was ticking down beside us, as if warning me what was coming.

I already knew.

“I love you, Ilyan.” I gasped out as I dragged my thumb over his lips. “I love you more than the world. More than life itself.”

“I know,” he whispered. “I can see it in your eyes, even if you don’t think so.”

I smiled, and his own grew to match mine as he pulled me back into him. His lips met mine once more before dragging over my cheek and down my neck.

“I have loved you all of my life, and I will love you until the end,” he said.

I closed my eyes, letting the warmth of the beach fill me just as the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, and the warmth of this life found us inside of the T?uha, if only for a moment.





20





Wind blew through my hair, pulling at the strands like some demon that was trying to whisk me away. What hair the beast managed to pull from my braid blew around my face in a mêlée of black. The bright gold ribbon moved with them, as if it alone was battling an invisible foe.

I just didn’t care.

I walked against the wind, through the chill, holding the thick wool blanket that had been on Dramin’s bed around me, wishing it were enough to block the chill. Regardless, it was still biting, moving through me with every step. I didn’t even bother to heat my magic to warm me. At least with the cold I didn’t feel quite so dead inside.