Everyone was quiet. The revelation caused silvery wetness to line Zahra's eyes. Kian stared into the fire, his jaw tight.
Kian cleared his throat, and his voice came out hoarse when he spoke. "The darkness shows me your death, Seren. It shows me Zahra's death. It shows me I'm not strong enough or enough for you guys. I-I guess I still do picture you as a little boy, Seren, but it's not because you are. No, you're a man, and I'm damn proud of you. Liebbe knows I am. I'm just afraid."
It was the most they'd ever heard Kian say.
Everyone sat stunned. Marzanna felt herself start to get choked up at the brothers' statements. It seemed they both struggled to communicate, but it was clear that they loved one another dearly.
Zahra held the brothers close. Marzanna noticed she put her arm around Seren's shoulder, firmly lying her hand on his chest. Seren let out a comforted sigh.
"We'll stop coddling you, Seren. We promise," Zahra said.
"Thank you," Seren said, his voice tinged with relief.
Noelani gazed at the group looking everyone in the eye, except for Seren, instead gazing at his chest. "Maybe we should take a break for the night. Get some sleep." She looked at Leo and Westin who were studiously ignoring everyone. Clearly uncomfortable with sharing any feelings.
"Good idea," Marzanna said.
Everyone got up to go into the tent. Khione stayed sitting. She had been quiet the whole time. Not looking at anyone or sharing any fears.
Marzanna knew something was gnawing at her, her fear and guilt and sadness peaked through their bond.
She reminded herself that she didn't have a right to pry and stood from the log.
As she started walking towards the tent, Khione's voice floated into her ears.
"Marzanna, wait!"
Chapter 34
Leo
Writhia, 5220
The Wastes
As the group dispersed, heading to the tent to sleep, Leo found himself separating from them and walking towards the line of trees that began the edges of the forest. He walked with purpose and he knew the moment Jo noticed him, felt her eyes on his back like the security of a blanket. He knew when she decided to follow him, the Match bond that had sparked to life between them crackling with every step she took closer to him.
He stopped at the base of a large tree with low hanging branches. This will do, he thought as Jo stopped beside him. He needed privacy but he couldn't leave the group behind, in case they needed him. In case he needed them. This tree could provide the privacy he needed. He glanced at Jo out of the corner of his eye and thought, That is, if she doesn’t mind a little climbing.
Leo reached out and grabbed a branch, holding it with both hands as he swung himself up onto it. Straddling it, he reached a hand out to Jo.
She smirked at him, mirth lighting in his chest, before grabbing the branch in her own hands, swinging herself up in a less graceful but more efficient maneuver than he had used. His lips quirked as she met his eyes, a challenge in her own.
Standing, he grabbed the next branch, pulling himself up. Jo did the same, following him, branch after branch, higher and higher. She didn't miss a beat when the branches became too thin to hold both their weights and she swung herself onto the one next to his, close enough to touch.
When they were high enough to talk without the others hearing them far below, Leo stopped, sitting sideways on his branch. His legs dangled freely below him and his hands were scratched from the bark, but he felt energized. He felt ready.
He felt new.
Jo and Noelani were right. They all needed to talk, to relieve some of the shadows that seemed to weigh on each of their minds. After listening to the others speak, he felt that he finally might be ready to tell someone. He had never told anyone, keeping it a secret for years and years because the thought of telling someone and having them look at him with pity had made him want to vomit.
But as he had listened to Jo and the others talk about their own shadows, as he had seen how their friends looked at them with understanding or, at the very least, sympathy, he thought he could maybe stand to tell someone.
Seph, his mind had whispered when he'd decided he was ready. When he had seen her cry over being cruel in a dream and realized she would never hurt him, not intentionally.
Seph will understand.
Now, she sat across from him, leaves in her hair, her arms resting across a branch that cut between them at chest height. Close enough to touch, but far enough away that he didn't have to, not if he didn't want to. The problem was that he wanted to. Badly.
"You're a pretty good climber," he said to distract himself from her eyes and the fact that he could touch her if he wanted to.
She smiled, "Sunny and I climbed trees a lot growing up. I haven't done it in a while, though. My tree- climbing muscles may be sore tomorrow." Her expression grew serious. "Why do you climb? I have a feeling it has less to do with hide-and-seek or sneaking out to meet boys the way it does for Sunny and me."
He smirked a little, "I don't know, I've snuck out to meet a few boys myself. And girls." His smirk faded and he looked at the stars and wondered briefly if anyone had ever successfully counted them. "I like to be above things," he said, fingers drumming on the branch he sat on, "That way. . .that way. . ." he trailed off, searching his mind for a way to explain, to make her see.
"That way they can't see you? Or touch you?" she asked.
Leo's eyes flew to her in surprise. Jo's eyes were bright in the starlight. Bright with starlight and heavy with knowledge. His heart picked up speed.
"You know?" he asked, his voice barely more than
a whisper.
Her lips thinned and he felt her caution through the bond. Caution and guilt. "Not everything. Not. . . specifics. You told me, in a dream, before I realized I was in your dream. You said some things, but they didn't make a lot of sense."
His heart stopped. Seized. "The dream with the creek. With you in that dress and me in those weird clothes. That was you."
His breath came out harder as he fought to cope with the fact that she had been in his head and he hadn't known.
Her eyes were shiny, afraid. "I didn't know. The moment I realized what was happening I woke up, I promise! I haven't done it again. I wouldn't. . ." She was desperate for him to believe her, he could feel it.
Leo took a deep breath and his heart slowed a tiny bit. "I believe you."
She jerked, the branch between them swaying in her hands. "You do?"
He ran his hands through his hair and nodded. "Can I tell you?" He asked, and his voice was smaller than it had ever been.
She nodded.
His eyes flew around, looking for a safe place to land. Settled on Jo's hands, gripping the slender branch between them.
He briefly wondered which of his emotions she could feel. His fear? His reluctance? His desperation? His deep, endless sorrow? His pain?
All of it?
He decided it didn't matter, not in the long run.
"It was about," he let loose a breath, pretending to count in his head as if he didn't know exactly how long it had been, "fifty years ago? My father and mother were still alive. I was young and willful and always in trouble. My dad. . . wasn't the best. He wasn't the worst, but he wasn't taking me to plays or sports matches. The Cassavant name was-is-important in Ettria. Long before Azmodeous, or his mother, or her father. Before the Moreau's even took over the throne, the Cassavants were esteemed. Countless generations of Cassavants marrying into Ettrian royalty, as well as other royal families. It was a lot of pressure, a lot to live up to. And in his eyes, I never quite measured up."
Leo felt shaky, off-kilter. He put his hands on the branch, on either side of Jo's, to steady himself. "My mother was kind, but she was sad a lot. It was depression, I realized that later, that she missed Pocaea and her family, but when I was a kid, I thought she was just sad. That it would go away if I could make Father proud of me. I wanted nothing more than my father's approval. His validation. But
no matter how hard I tried, I was never who he wanted me to be. Never calm enough, or responsible or dignified enough."
His mouth twisted into some mangled version of a smile. "I caught someone's eye, though. She saw me and she read me like a book, my every wish spelled out for her like words on a page."
"Cerise," Jo whispered, and Leo forced himself not to flinch. Reminded himself he was safe, that she was far away.
"It started as a flirtation. I was. . . captivated. She saw me when no one else did, gave me smiles and praise when I was at my lowest point. She was beautiful and smart and brutal and older. Before I knew it, she was all I thought about, all I dreamt about. Day and night, the only thought in my mind was her and how I could please her that day."
His knuckles turned white as he clutched the branch. "We'd spend days at a time in her rooms, barely eating, never sleeping. I did things to her, let her do things to me, that I had never done or felt with another person. She'd leave me to go attend some sort of business and I would lie in her room and wait, unable to even move until she was back, telling me what to do. But worse than that was the fact that I loved her. She made me love her to the point I thought I would die without her. She was my only reason for existing. For years."
He let out a humorless laugh. "At least, that's how it was until she got bored of me. It was bound to happen eventually. And when she did, when she ended that thrall over me, I realized what she had done. None of what I had felt was real, it was all her controlling me. Making me want her. Making me need her. Making me crave her. I looked around and realized the person I had been was destroyed. I could hardly remember my parents dying, only had a vague recollection of attending their funeral."
He looked up and found tears leaking slowly down Jo's face. They mirrored his own. They stared at each other, tears falling silently. She was crying for him, but there was no judgment in her eyes. They only reflected his own grief for the person he had been and the trust he had lost.
"It took me a long time to become my own person again, Seph. And when I did, it wasn't the same person I was before. I don't trust people, not since then. And when I learned to shield my mind, I promised myself I would never let another Murmur into my mind like that. Ever." He licked his lips, "And then you came along and you were a Murmur, just like her, and I was attracted to you. Am attracted to you. But I thought that as long as I had my shield and didn't let you too close, I'd be safe. That we could be friends. And then I touched your hand."
He picked up her hand and studied it. Her long, thin fingers. The delicate lines in her pale skin, slightly reddened by the sun. Where he touched her, the bond sang and sparked along his skin.
"I want you, Seph. I want you so gods-damned much that it scares me half to death. And when we kissed, there was a moment when I forgot about Cerise and all I could think about was how right it felt. But I'm not used to things feeling right, and it made me think that maybe it was you controlling me like she did."
Jo opened her mouth, but he held his hand up, quieting her.
"I know now that you wouldn't do that. When I heard you talk about your dreams down there, saw you cry over just the thought of controlling someone to make them love you, I knew you would never be like Cerise. Not like that." He looked up to find her staring at him, some emotion he didn't, couldn't, understand in her eyes.
"What are you saying, Leo?" she whispered, and he knew that she wasn't asking for her, she was asking for him. She wanted to know if he was alright, for his sake.
"I'm saying that this," he held their joined hands up between them, "scares me. And I don't know how to make this work, or if it will work. But I want. . . I think I want to try. Slowly, if that's alright with you?"
She brought up her other hand to clasp his hand between hers. A watery smile spread across her face. "I'm scared, too," she told him, her fingers tracing over his skin,
"I don't know how any of this works. My only examples are Sunny and Westin, which, let's be honest, I don't know what's going on there, and Kian and Zahra." Her smile turned wry, "And I don't know what makes them work, but I feel like it has something to do with Zahra's need to tie things up with her bolas."
Leo choked out a surprised laugh at that, the tightness in his chest loosening just a little.
"My point is, I don't really have a precedent for this, so I think we should just do what feels right. For us."
Leo nodded. "I can work with that."
She smiled then and he felt it, the beginnings of hope, of light, begin to glow within her. "Then you're in charge, for now, Leo Cassavant, until we've reached a place where you're comfortable. Until then, you say when to stop as well as when to go."
Leo leaned against the branch that floated between them and felt a grin spread across his face as she leaned in as well, their faces inches apart, his hands on hers.
"Go," he whispered, placing a quick, light kiss against her forehead before swinging down to the branch below, Jo complaining about him being unfair as she followed, a smile in her voice.
Chapter 35
Khione
Writhia, 5220
The Wastes
Marzanna didn't flinch when Khione called her name.
There was a sense of nervousness and expectation followed by a sliver of hope, and Khione knew that if she could feel Marzanna's emotions this clearly, then the same could likely be said for her Match.
She turned and headed back to where Khione sat. It was as if she glided over. Floated on a cloud, hips swaying. She sat and Khione felt the heat of her body, her legs brushing against her own.
Khione's clammy hands swiped against her suit as her knee bounced rapidly.
Marzanna placed her hand against Khione's knee. "What is it?"
"The darkness. . . it shows me flashbacks of my childhood on replay." Marzanna picked up her hand and kissed her knuckles. Marzanna's eyes were patient, kind, waiting for Khione to continue, so she did. "My parents hated me. We lived deep in the Pocean mountains. It was cold, always so cold. I ate fish for every meal and I never had any hope. They always told me I'd never amount to anything. I didn't accept that, though. It made me want to make something of myself that much more."
Marzanna's thumbs roamed over her knuckles soothingly, and Khione felt a deep sense of respect and warmth flow through her and that gave Khione the courage to continue. "After being their slave for so long, doing everything for them, putting up with the hatred they would spew. I never really had the time to harness my Gift as a child." Khione's eyes lost focus as she recalled her last day in the camp she had lived. "When I saw a huge transport that came one night to deliver weapons to Vianna, I didn't hesitate. I jumped in with nothing but the cloak on my back." Noticing the look on Marzanna's face she said, "Don't worry, there's a point to this story. I'm not telling you this so you'll feel sorry for me."
Marzanna's brow furrowed. "It's not that. I'm just amazed that you made it across an entire region without any help. I don't think you realize how capable you are."
Khione absorbed her words, like a sponge would water. It built her up, and she felt as if she were made of steel. That-that was the effect Marzanna had on her.
"You see, my parents had always made me feel powerless, worthless. And then, I met you." She smiled at Marzanna whose eyes shone with sympathy, yet she beamed back. Khione's smile faltered as she thought about her next words.
"I swear to Liebbe that I loved you that first moment I saw you," she whispered, fiddling with Marzanna's hand. "You were like a beacon to me. You made me feel special, alive.. . seen. Seen like no one else had seen me before, and I craved that, craved you. You were-are-literally perfect. A dream come true."
Marzanna wiped a tear from Khione's eye. Her own eyes misted over.
"If you loved me-do love me-then why have you pushed me away all this time?"
"Your father."
It was as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped on Marzanna. Shocked realization covered the lines of her face as she brought a hand to her mo
uth. "What did he do?" she whispered.
The shock on her face lingered, but Khione could feel her sadness, and deep down, her awareness. Awareness and regret. She guessed Marzanna was berating herself for not knowing as if it should've been obvious.
"He told me I wasn't powerful enough to be with a princess of Morianna." Marzanna gasped, shaking her head furiously. "I know you love your father, Marzanna. I didn't want to cause any strife between you."
"You believed him, didn't you?"
"Of course I did. I mean, he wasn't wrong. You're well, you. And I'm just some nobody from backwoods Pocea, a heathen. I don't know if I could protect you. I still don't know if I'm powerful enough." Khione looked down, ashamed and drained at all she had finally told.
Suddenly, she felt Marzanna's arms around her.
Squeezing her. Lending her love and comfort and warmth, and peace. So, so much peace.
"Oh, Khione," she said. "Don't you know I love you, too? Couldn't you feel it? I've never tried to hide it. Your soul calls to mine. It's like birds chirping on a sunny day.
You're courageous, and beautiful and smart, and so strong. You are enough. Always have been, always will be. Love isn't about who's most powerful. It's about compromises and laughter and being in it for the long run. There will be fights and hard times, and times we want to strangle each other, but we will choose the good times every time.
Because what we share is more precious than any treasure or royalty. It's real and it's right. Nothing has ever felt so right."
Every word. Every praise. Marzanna's absolute truth and awe when she spoke about her. Khione would remember it. She basked in the warm embrace. She never wanted to leave. Never wanted to forget that moment. That lightness. That feeling of wholeness.
This , she thought to herself, this is the moment I'll replay in my head from now on.
"I'm so sorry." Khione's voice was muffled against Marzanna's shoulder. "I'm so sorry for all the pain I've caused you."
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