Then this obsession is all mine.
I sit on my throne, considering my next moves. It’s been a long night. Between the oracles, then Isla’s secret ...
I should at least try to sleep. When I start to move, a pain shoots down my side. The blue. It’s spreading.
Slowly, I sink back into my throne. Peace. All I want is just amomentthat is not utter chaos.
My head falls back. My eyes fall closed.
There she is. Isla. Sitting on the cliff just above my favorite beach. She turns to look at me over her shoulder as I approach.
Guilt spreads through my chest as I think about my plans.
“Couldn’t sleep?” she says. Only then do I notice the patch of stars above her. Only she could distract from a starry sky. She puts all of them to shame. She takes my silence as confirmation. “Me neither.”
This is a dream. I know it is. I hardly speak to her in these dreams, content to just sit with her here on this cliff, or on the beach below, but I realize ... here, in my head, I can be fully honest with her in a way I can’t be outside of it. I can be honest about my feelings. About the turmoil she has unleashed in me.
If I get it all out ... even just in my head ... maybe these distracting thoughts will end. Because they must. So I can do what needs to be done.
“Isla.”
She just blinks at me.
And I say the words I wanted to. The ones I couldn’t say in that cave. The ones smelted from my very soul. My voice is harsh. Irritated.
“I hate you. I hate you, Isla. I really do.” I take a step toward her. “I hate you for turning my ice to fire, and my fire to ice ... for infuriating me in one moment and bewitching me the next.” I run my hands down my face. My voice is accusatory. Angry.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to look at you? Looking at you feels like drowning. I’m drowning in you, Isla, and the worst part is, I can swim, I can see the shore, yet here I remain, right in the center of your storm.”
This fire builds in me, all these emotions I have fought to bury. All these words I have sought to erase, but they are here. They arereal.
“I don’t remember what sunlight feels like on my skin but when you look at me, it feels close. Centuries of darkness, and here you are, a reminder that this cursed world still has beauty in it yet. A reminder that it hasfightin it yet.
“But spending time with you ... it is more pain than pleasure. It is misery. It is torment.
“Because your smile is a sunrise. But you—you are a sunset. This time with you is bound to end. It always ends.
“And damn me, I wish it could be endless. I really do. But you are a liar. You are my enemy. You are my greatest flaws and fears reflected back to me.
“And maybe that’s what this is—the jagged pieces in me finding the jagged pieces in you. And fitting together, somehow.
“The fire in me seeing the fire in you. And igniting. Finally igniting, after so much time spent fading.”
I have never bowed to anyone since I have become king, but I sink to my knees in front of her, needing her to understand.Beggingher to release me from this.
“Isla. You are beautiful in a way that words can’t hold. I wish I had all the time in the world to tell you all the ways you have captivated me, but that would surely take lifetimes, and we are on borrowed timealready.” I shake my head. “I wish—Iwishwe were not enemies. But we are.”
It takes all my strength to stand. To say “I’m sorry” in advance. To leave her on that cliff, overlooking the beach.
I jerk awake.
I know what I must do.
Isla is going to hate me. I think of her eyes, swollen and red. I think of those tears, each like daggers through my chest. I’m about to make it all worse. She trusted me with her greatest secret, and I’m about to share it.
“Can I trust you?” she asked.
I told her yes. And she can, shecan. This plan will benefit her. I’m not betraying her, not really. But she will not see it that way. I know that. She will hate me forever.
