Page 160 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

Tears streamed down my face again when he said, “I love you too much for it to even matter. I’m in love with you, Thora, even if you never forgive me or love me back, I will always love you. Ten years ago I left because I had never made peace with the fact that I could love you while you could never love me back. Now I have. I’ve made my peace.”

I should have been first.

I should have said it first.

I loved him first.

But maybe because of that, because I had loved him first, I would be the one to free him from what had been his cage all these years.

“I want you to go,” I said, standing. “And I don’t want you to come back this time.” Be a free man. An entirely free man.

“Thora—”

“You owe me a promise. This—I want this. Go.”

There was no emotion on his hardened face when he nodded and backed away. Lingering a bit before fading out of sight.

It was so empty.

My room was so empty.

Where he used to stand was empty.

My mind was so empty, too. Emptier than it had ever been. And ever so clear. I don’t remember ever being so clear minded.

Even the mirror before me looked too…precise. Had it always been so sharp, so telling. How come I’d never noticed? Leaning forward until I was barely an inch from it, I stared at my new eyes. My pupils were now surrounded by a ring of gold that blended with the green.

The Krigborn gold.

To remind a Krigborn of the warmth of the sun despite their cold heart.

I knew exactly the moment my heart had turned cold—I had felt it. My own emotions had failed to recognise the cruelty I had wanted to inflict—the cruelty I’d already inflicted in the Islines, the same cruelty that almost became a proxy to the death of the man I loved.

It was the moment I’d felt entirely too numb. I’d almost missed my turbulent heart and my tempestuous mind.

It had been the moment I realised that all my fears had come true.

That I was my father’s daughter.

That my magic was a curse.

I think I knew what door I’d shut in my heart. It was the same one I usually locked my mind behind when I wanted to shield away from the world. It was somewhere safe, somewhere no one could find, somewhere so tightly locked no one could ever get inside.

All but one.

He’d gotten behind it and saved my mind.

He’d tried to get behind it again to save my heart.

I had not allowed him.

Maybe it was for me to save myself this time.

I jumped at the soft knock on my door. Even though everything in me hoped it was him, I knew it was not him.

Snow stood at my doorstep, holding one child in each hand. “We come bearing gifts,” she said, and Rain stepped forward, handing me a box of sweets and wrinkling her nose at them. Sam followed next with a bouquet of white roses.

How could I refuse that?