She’s dreaming about me.
She thinks about me.
I want to crawl inside her head, I want to see her dreams, I want to live in them alongside her. Because only in our heads could we ever live a life of peace.
I shake my head.
“What are you doing to me?” I ask, as she sighs against my skin. She shifts, as if her dream has taken a turn.
I’ve lost my mind. I’ve seen blood and entrails strewn across the battlefield, yet what twists my stomach is seeing herfrown. Why is she frowning in her sleep? Who can I kill to stop that?
The need pounding in my blood is nearly enough to bring me to my knees.
You’re dangerous. You are a curse.
I want you anyway.
NIGHTBANE
For centuries, I lived in frost and darkness. Until she showed up in my castle, gleaming like the first star at night, and showed me all the ways the world could still make a person smile.
Now, even through the near-endless calls to the scar, I notice the pockets of beauty in my lands. And, when I see beautiful things, I have the urge to show them to her. That’s why I think to take her to the field of nightbane. To see her reaction to it. To show her that Nightshade is not all darkness and shadows. There is color in my realm, it is not all like the castle she despises.
I used to think nightbane was just a poison. That it was solely vile. Addictive. Disgusting.
But now ... now I see the pretty flower and realize it can be so much more. It can be used forlife. Not just death.
“I want to show you something,” I say, after we’ve finished what seems like our hundredth time trying to get past the obstacles in the cave. We’re almost ready. We’re almost about to reach the end of this journey.
She takes my hand, and I’ll never tire of it. Of her trust, that I’ll bring her somewhere safe. A trust I don’t deserve.
We land, and I pluck one of the flowers for her. I hand it to her.
I’ve never given anyone a flower before. I don’t know if I look ridiculous, and I go still for a moment, tense, awaiting her reaction.
Surprise melts into something deeper. She likes it. She takes it.
“Smell it, Hearteater.”
She does. Then, she frowns.
“Familiar?”
“It has the same scent as the Wildling healing elixir,” she says. She looks wary.
“I think they’re the same flower.”
There it is, a bridge between our two realms. Proof that perhaps they are not so different. That maybe ... maybe something could work between us.
She turns around, studying the field, and I feel her awe. Her confusion.
“What even is this?”
“It’s nightbane,” I tell her.
Sometimes the most potent poison comes from the most beautiful flower.
I should know.
