Her hand covers mine and I flinch. I wasn’t expecting her to touch me. I didn’t expect her touch to be so light, so gentle. She presses her hand against mine, and we both cover her wound.
We don’t look away. Neither of us.
We stare and stare, touching each other, and it feels different from the thorns, and from when she helped me in the cave.
It feels like that dream. When she wanted me as much as I wanted her.
The air between us is charged, and sheis still staring at me, as if I could possibly be worthy of her notice. The wound is healed, but I keep my hand there far longer than necessary, suddenly greedy and wanting every moment to last a little longer, with those green eyes trained on me. With those lips parted, like she could possibly want me to part them further with my tongue.
My knuckles trail down her ribs, grazing the edges of the wound. My fingers linger slightly, but she doesn’t make a move, even though she has to know I’m done healing her. She has to know we’ve been staring at each other for far too long.
“Finished,” I say, knowing this is wrong. Knowing we shouldn’t be doing this.
I remove my hand, and she immediately shivers at the loss of heat. I touch her knee—a more innocent place, I think—to heat her once more.
“Did you find it?” she asks, breathless.
Yes, I think I did. It was there all along. Just frozen. Just ... waiting.
But she’s not talking about my heart. She’s talking about another one.
“No. It wasn’t there.”
Which means there’s only one last place to look.
ASHES
It’s not there.
We went right into enemy territory, Vinderland lands, and the heart of Lightlark was not in the final place. We were wrong.
Iwas wrong.
I watch Isla bang her fists against the ice, screaming in rage. I want to do the same thing, but I fear it would bring the entire island down. The depths of my anger and sadness, built up over the centuries and buried, might be enough to destroy this world, if let out.
Isla starts to cry.
She lets me lift her from the ice. Soon we’re back to the castle. She shakes slightly in my arms, and what is this rage, building within me?
What is this despair, unspooling?
She doesn’t even look at me, when I leave her on the balcony. She just goes into her room and closes the door behind her.
Don’t give up yet, I want to tell her, even though I’m ready to do the same.
But for some reason, the thought of that flame within her extinguishing is too painful to imagine.
She came to this island with her soul blazing. I could see it, even on the first day.
I’m losing her little by little. The light in her eyes is almost gone.
How to fix it?
How to make that fire within her grow?
I return to my room. This can’t be the end. There are still twenty days left of the Centennial. The island might not last that long, but we have to try.
I want to go to her room, I want to get to her before that fire dies, but I’m nothing to her. If anything,Ihave snuffed that fire out.
