Phoenix Flame - Sara Holland Page 0,10

us, reflecting the purple dusk sky. For a moment, we stand side by side in silence, watching the stars slowly make themselves known overhead.

“Did you learn anything from Cancarnette?” Brekken asks at length. The music from the Havenfall ballroom reaches us faintly, spilled from open windows and floating through the twilight, now backed up by a chorus of crickets and frogs.

“A little,” I say. “I told him that story you told me when we were little, about the knight and the princess with her healing pendant. But you left out the ending, Brekken.” I speak lightly, finishing with a laugh, but the space between us suddenly feels a little denser.

“Did I?” Brekken says. His voice is similarly light, but when I glance at him, his eyes are serious. “Well, who could blame me?” He turns his body toward mine, and I find myself automatically doing the same, like a magnet responding to a lode. “I want to make everything perfect for you.”

“Perfect doesn’t exist,” I say, grinning.

But he doesn’t grin back. He looks intently at me. “I disagree.”

And he leans down to kiss me again.

This time, without our audience of delegates, things get heated quickly. His hands roam over my back and sides; my tongue slips out to taste his lips, sugar and frost and mulled wine. That reminds me of the truth serum, and the guilt slices through the dizzy want. I turn my face to the side—just a little, our bodies still pressed together—and gasp the words into his ear.

“Brekken, wait.”

He freezes immediately, then steps back, concern creasing his face. The evening air that rushes into the space between us feels extra cold, and I reach after him.

“No, don’t go, I’m fine—”

“Then what’s wrong?” His voice is husky, his cheeks pink and eyes hazy bright.

I don’t remember running my hands through his hair, but I must have, because his usually tidy copper locks are messy and wild. He lets me grab the lapels of his jacket and pull him back close to me, but all he does is rest his hands cautiously on my waist.

“That wine,” I say, shame and happiness running circles inside me. “It had a truth serum in it. I just wanted to find out if the delegates knew about the soul trade—”

“A serum?” Brekken says. But instead of the shock and indignation I expect, his words carry the edge of laughter. He blinks and smiles at me. “Maddie, I knew that.”

The relief that hits me is profound and immediate. “You did?”

“I mean, not before I drank it,” Brekken clarifies. “But after that it was fairly obvious.”

“And …” I wait for him to go on, to reprimand me, but he doesn’t. “You’re not mad?”

“About using it on me or on the delegates?”

“Either,” I say. “Both?”

He shakes his head, his face growing serious. “Once I might have been. But that was before I found out about the soul trade. Now I know we have to end this however we can.”

I think of my brother, Nate. A sense of resolve and relief fills me, relief that Brekken feels the same way. “I agree.”

He leans in and kisses me again. It’s not so wild this time, but tender and slow and serious. Like a promise. I kiss him back, winding my arms around his neck, playing with the impossibly soft hairs at the nape of his neck. I feel like I’m falling through space, but gently somehow. There’s no fear in it. Suddenly I know that whatever I decide to do next, Brekken will be behind me, and that makes me feel so much braver. Like maybe I can actually do this.

“Did Cancarnette tell you what happened to the knight in the story?” Brekken whispers after a few minutes, low and close to my ear.

For a moment I don’t want to hear any more. I want to tell him I only want to know if there’s a happy ending. But I stop myself. Surely, after everything, I can handle a story. “Just that the lady died from an illness.”

“After the lady died, the heartbroken knight wandered through all the worlds,” Brekken says. “There were more Realms then, more than we even remember. He traveled them all, and he slayed monsters and protected the innocent in every one. But he never came back to Fiordenkill. Either he perished in one of the other realms or he decided to stay away.”

I pull back and stare. “That’s a terrible ending,” I say, indignant.

Brekken blinks, like he’s been caught up in a