Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,192

fists.

There was more to say, more than could ever be said, but Ludivine was shut away in her eerie candlelit room, fighting for every moment. There was no time to say anything more, no time to mend or heal. Not forgiveness, Ludivine had said. Only acceptance. And Eliana had come to Simon’s room determined to do nothing but talk, to work at opening her power to him and helping him search once more for his.

But when he turned his face up to hers, his hands trembling at her sleeves, Eliana lost all sense of the wrath she wished he deserved and knew he did not, and she met his mouth gladly.

He waited until she had settled in his lap before wrapping his arms around her. The sensation nearly split her chest in two. Such a solid cocoon of warmth. She cried out against his lips, opened her mouth to receive his kisses. They spilled inside her like knives warmed by fire. Hot steel glinting red, blades that slipped and sliced. He smelled of salt and smoke, murmured her name until she wore the syllables on her skin.

This would bring no relief, Eliana knew, even as she clung to him. His fingers found her, and she clenched her thighs around his arm. They would finish, and they would ache in body and in heart, everything they had locked away now once again unleashed. His power would return if they were lucky, or maybe unlucky, and then he would send her back to do the impossible thing she must do, and she would never see this version of him again, never see any of them again. If she succeeded, if her unborn self survived, she would grow up in Old Celdaria, ignorant of everything she had once been, or had never been.

She wove her fingers into Simon’s hair, pulled hard so he would look up at her. His eyes landed on her face, just as searing hot as she remembered, and his hand moved just as it had the first time until the fire rising inside her spilled over, roaring. Despair came fast on its heels, and she knew she could not stop, not yet, not ever.

Frantic, she moved to lie flat on her back and then pulled him atop her. Guided him into place, hooked her legs around his. He must have sensed her desperation, the wild sorrow building in her chest like a storm spinning with pitiless thunder. He moved sharp and hard, as if he could imbue in her the memory of every night they would never have. An apology for every time he had hurt her. A plea for forgiveness that would never come.

She arched up against him, tightened the grip of her thighs. Tugged at his hair, dug her fingernails into the scarred flesh of his back. When he latched on to her throat, sucking gently on her skin, she whispered for more, begged him, commanded him. Her mind was a cascading shower of light. She knew nothing but him—the map of his scars under her palms, the rough plane of his jaw scraping her cheek, his mouth on every trembling slope of her body. His hoarse voice, hot against her ear, and how beautifully it cracked open under the weight of her name.

After, cooling in the damp sheets, soft and sticky in the nest of his arms, Eliana pressed her face against his chest. Her jaw aching with tension, her legs and arms heavy and tired, she listened to the steady rhythm of his heart.

“I don’t love you,” she whispered fiercely against his skin.

A moment passed. Then she felt Simon’s hand cup the back of her head, cradling her to him. His lips touched her brow.

“I know,” he replied, his voice choked with sadness. “I don’t love you either.”

40

Simon

“In the stars I draw your hair

In the moon I find your eyes

In my blood I hold your name

In my bones I feel your lies.”

—Traditional Kirvayan folk song

At first, when he woke, Simon could do nothing but look at her.

He’d kept his eyes open for as long as he could, relishing the sound of her breathing. But exhaustion had finally pulled him under into a light sleep that left him, as it always did, fighting through a wilderness of dark dreams.

And then he woke with Eliana curled tightly against him, her face knotted with anger even in sleep. He hardly breathed as he watched her. The tangle of dark hair falling over her cheek, her chapped lips, her