Imperial (Insight #8)(65)
The springs vibrated with the pure rage of his essence. “When?”
With wide eyes, I stared at him. “Before our first kiss.”
Disbelief was shrouding his image. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“I thought you knew,” I said so quietly that I barely heard my own words.
“You thought I knew? If I knew, why would I ask you constantly to tell me what you were feeling?”
“I told you that you were my rush—you said the same.”
“That is not love, Glory. That is devotion between two. You just confessed more than that to me. You just connected our two souls, and so much more.”
My head was spinning...how was he saying that word so freely now?
“No one in our race states such a word,” I argued with a weak defense.
“Right. And I told you the lore regarding why.”
I started to tremble. He had told me why. He told me that word was not spoken because no sovereigns had ever felt it. But that was eons after I knew why it was never spoken.
“I already believed the other way.”
“You believed Xavier?”
“He was not a foe when he told me.”
“He was a foe before you were ever risen,” he said with a bite to his tone. The anger was for Xavier, but I still felt the tremble.
“I didn’t know that. I was a timid girl that thought at any moment something would take you away from me. Still am. Still do.”
His arms embraced me tightly to silently assure me that he was not going anywhere, and neither was I.
“Are you telling me that not once, not one single time that you were with me that I didn’t open the door for you to question such a savage lore?”
I breathed in deeply, exhausted from the onslaught of emotions. From thinking one instant that I was slaughtering my line to the next where I understood that there was never a risk in feeling such an emotion.
“You opened the door, but my wrath forbade me from saying such a thing. The risk of killing you or even being taken away from you was too much.”
“He did take you away from me,” he snapped, his thoughts clearly on Xavier.
“My wrath did. I was furious at you and too stubborn to ask for help. Now I don’t know where we are. I walked into this spring expecting to die in your arms, assuming that I would slaughter my line with that one word.”
“You thought that was the risk, and you still spoke the word?” he asked with a gasp. I wasn’t sure if he was flattered by that or angry that I would do such a thing.
“If I was going to die again, you deserved to know how I felt, how I always felt it.”
He clenched his jaw before he spoke. “What could have caused you to choose death once again?”
“Metallic energy.”
His body went rigid and his arms tensed around me. “The Creator spoke to you?”
“Yeah, and He told me that my line would be risen to be like Silas, and if they were then Silas and Mazing could be together. That my line in their form could help Silas defend all of those souls that carry that energy.”
“All?” he said as he raised his brow, clearly not believing me.
“You should hear them,” I said as I swallowed nervously.
He let his long finger caress the outline of my face. “You did not hear what you thought.”
I knew I did, and it would be best to show him instead of arguing about it.
“Why have you chosen to couple Silas with Mazing? To break the attraction he has to that light?”
I moved my head from side to side and replayed what I saw Silas go through in the field in my mind.
As Vade saw it, pride consumed his gaze.
“She marked his soul. That is him. Xavier clearly continued his torture on him.”
“You have no idea,” Vade said under his breath.
“I went to smite Silas. I went to stop him from wrecking you. I knew I had to do it right then or the other kings would hurt you, but then I saw that…and I thought of what he was protecting.” Vade went rigid once more. “There was no way out, then the Creator came and told me how I could rise above this.”
“You saw Him?”
“He was in the form of another, but in the end I knew who He was.”
“And somehow you still thought that the word ‘love’ was deadly, that He wanted you to end our race?”
“Vade, He literally carved a wooden arrow and left it at my side. I took in the signs.”
Right at that moment, I heard a clanking sound and glanced to my side; the stick was there.
Vade called it to his hand with a thought. He could clearly see how deadly it was now, how it could be seen as a clear symbol of demise. Vade smirked as he moved his knees from beneath him and adjusted me on his lap. He held it in front of me and slowly turned it. On the other side, there was a carving: GLORYVADE THE FIRST ETERNAL LOVERS. Before I could gasp, he turned it once more: SOULS MADE OF ONE.
“I—I didn’t see the words.” This was an arrow, with our names pointed at the symbol of eternity.
“It is hard to see and feel through wrath, Glory,” Vade said tenderly to me.
His eyes stared into mine. “I told you that before you were risen. I told the Creator I wanted to be His voice of change, His example, that I wanted to carry our race into the next evolution. I knew if kings could not rise, neither could those under our watch…sometime later, He asked me to rest, and I did. When I woke, He was there. We had a very lengthy conversation. He told me that there were seven. Seven lights would prevent my fellow kings from harming those we watch over. He smiled when He saw my relief. As our talk aged, He spoke of energy, how it should be in balance. He spoke of the metallic energy. He placed that dream in my heart.”