But that had been no more than a bandage. Underneath the white robes, I’d been a mess of broken bones too scattered to mend, the ichor of the prison left to fester and turn me into one of them. A monster.
I’d been a fool to love Ami, to let myself have her—not because she was so far above me, but because I wasn’t whole enough to love anyone. Didn’t trust myself, I supposed.
“Ash?” Ami whispered. I pulled my gaze from the intense blue of the sky out the windows to find the same clarity in her eyes, watching me with caution and concern.
“I didn’t remember these windows, from before,” I told her, in lieu of asking what she’d seen to make her worry. “Or this bed, for that matter.”
“I had them put in. So you could see the sky even with the shutters closed. And I thought you’d like this bed better, because it kind of looks like the forest.”
I studied her, impossibly moved. “You planned for me to come back here all along?”
“Of course,” she said simply. “I always wanted you here with me, if I could be enough for you. I know you’d be giving up other things. Maybe more important things.”
“Nothing is more important to me than you are. I’m sorry if I made it seem otherwise.” I reached up and smoothed the hair out of her face. “My sun.”
A line formed between her brows. “I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”
“My love,” I amended, and pressed a kiss to that line, smoothing it away. “But you should know—it was never you. You never blinded or burned me. It was always me, too afraid of what I wanted. I wanted you more than anything, and that wanting terrified me.”
She pulled back a little, laying a hand on my stubbled cheek. “Are you talking to me?”
“I’m trying. I’m not good at it. Silence is… easier.” And it always had been, I realized. The White Monks, the vow of silence, that had been the tourniquet. It stopped the life-threatening loss of blood, but keeping it tight for too long had nearly made me lose what mattered most in my life.
“I think I understand that,” she answered. “I try to, anyway. But sometimes… sometimes your silence hurts me. I feel like you don’t trust me.”
A sound came out of me, involuntary, pain to match hers. And maybe an acknowledgment of that truth. “I don’t want you to think less of me,” I admitted.
“Oh, Ash,” she breathed. “You are the strongest, bravest, most amazing person I’ve ever met. You lived through horrible things that would break most people.”
“I think they did break me.” My voice, always hoarse, choked up, and wetness touched my lashes. I tried to turn my face away, so she wouldn’t see, but Ami’s hand tightened, holding me while she levered up to kiss my eyelids.
“You’re not broken,” she whispered against me. “You’re loving and kind. You embody patience, with me and the bratlings. You love me even when I’m being impossible and emotional.”
“I like that you rage and weep. It’s who you are—a vivid and passionate person who’s fully alive. Your way is better. You so freely express what I can’t. Sometimes…” I took a breath, focused on the sky. “Sometimes I think I’m like the volcano, with a cork in it. All this feeling inside me, it’s the lava that will explode out and burn everything around me to ash.”
“That’s not you.” Ami kissed me, heating it, stirring the passion between us until I groaned. “You do express it—during sex.”
“I… what?”
“During sex. You show me everything then. It’s the one time you’re not all guarded. That’s part of why I like everything you do to me, no matter what. Because it’s really you, showing me what’s really inside.”
I didn’t know what to think of that. Those seemed to be the times I lost control, when I lost sight of the man I’d tried so hard to craft from the shards left of that imprisoned boy. “I don’t like that idea, that who I truly am is someone who hurts you.”
“You never hurt me, not really. That’s the thing. Not during sex, anyway. You only hurt me when you pull away.”
“I pull away because I think I’m not good for you.”
“Because you think loving someone means destroying them.”
I nearly protested, but… “Maybe,” I finally said.
“But we already love each other, and we’re not destroyed. We’re better. I love you. Astar and Stella love you. You’d only destroy us by taking that away. We’d be lost without you.”
“You asked me to go.”
“No. And you claim I don’t listen.” She shook her head and sat up a little, making me look at her. “I never wanted you to go. I was trying not to be selfish and keep you with me against your wanting to go.”
I searched her face, bemused. “I never wanted to go. I thought you wanted me to.”
She sighed, raking back her hair. “What a pair we are. Flinging words back and forth and never getting the right message across. Will you explain to me why you think I wanted you to leave me, when you are the one person who keeps me whole in my heart?”
“Do I do that?”
“Yes. You alone have never been dazzled by my face, my body. You tell me the truth—when you talk to me.”
“Ami.” Reverently, I reached up and touched her face, then slid my fingers through the enticing silk of her hair. “I’m eternally dazzled by you. I can’t think straight when you smile at me. You know this.”
“Maybe—but I don’t agree on the thinking straight. You don’t let me sway you, even when I try my best.”
I laughed, a scrape of sound. “You sway me all the time.”
“Do I? Then let me sway you now.” She kissed me. “Stay with me. Don’t ever leave me. Be with me always.”
“Ami…” I tried, but she drank in the sound, making a hmm of pleasure. Reinforcing my grip on her shoulder, I set her away from me and sat up. “I can’t do that.”
“Aha.” She sat up, too, folding her arms over her naked bosom. “So much for my power over you. Why not? You said you don’t want to leave me.”
“I don’t want to.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “But we can’t be together forever. You know this.”
“I don’t know it. By Glorianna, you’re going to explain this to me.”
“You are the Queen of Avonlidgh.”
“I’m well aware.”
I shook my head in frustration. “You have obligations! To the throne of Avonlidgh, and to the High Throne, should it come to that. You have to marry a man of equal—or better—rank.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“You have to care—you’re a queen, not some dairy maid.”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m empty-headed.” She said it quietly, warning in her tone.
“I know perfectly well you’re not empty-headed,” I snapped. “You’re the smartest woman I’ve ever met, you’re just foolish when it comes to me.”
“You were doing well until that last bit. Ash—I am not a fool about you. I’m smart enough to know that I’m my best self with you. Glorianna laid Her hand on you and sent you to me. Now that I know you don’t really want to leave me, I’m not letting you go. Ever. Chew on that.”
Her decisive nod was mitigated somewhat by the luscious bounce of her breasts, but I managed not to smile. Or reach for her. No turning to sex to blunt the raw edges. Talk. Talk this out. “If you marry, your husband will not want me around.”
“Easily solved: I won’t marry anyone but you.”