I cursed. The transparency of the emrys—their ability to read each other’s unhindered emotions—wasn’t a blessing in my eyes. “You’re saying this was mercy. Allowing me to glimpse your soul was an act of mercy?”
Aneirin’s face couldn’t have been more wretched. “Yes. Is my friendship not enough? Isn’t that love worth fighting for—worth staying in Gorlassar for? You’re really leaving because I cannot give you my heart? Because I cannot give you the vows of love you so desperately seek?”
“Aneirin, you know me too well. You know everything about me. That’s why I thought you loved me. I had a vain hope those walls you cast up, the one’s masking your emotions, were hiding your affection for me.”
“I’m sorry that wasn’t true,” he said. “But this is one chink in the eternal scheme. You’ll move on. Your heart will heal, and you’ll fall in love with another.”
Catrin’s classically green emrys eyes shimmered at mine, and she grabbed my hand. “He’s right. This is but a cut in the tapestry of life. One nick that can be mended.”
I squeezed her slender hand. Closing my eyes, I searched within my heart. Seren didn’t move, although I felt her anxiety across the barrier of my mind. Could I do this to Seren? Take her from her mate? How could I be so headstrong, so obstinate? How could I defy my calling as a dragon guardian and endanger Seren’s life by fleeing to the mortal world? She gave me her stone. She trusted her life to me—bound her fate with mine. How could I even consider?
Catrin pushed wispy, golden blonde strands out of her eyes. She was as good as my sister and thirty-one years older. We were friends before Aneirin was born. I valued her opinion and always heeded her voice. Why didn’t I want to listen to her wisdom? I lapped up the hope swirling around her. She believed I’d stay. She believed I was strong enough to overcome my embarrassment.
Indeed, I was just upset over a silly broken heart. Aneirin had wounded my pride, and the insult festered like an embedded thorn constantly probing deeper into my very being. Could I pull the thorn? Catrin’s hope was that I’d grasp ahold and yank the offender out.
Then I would bleed.
I curled my hands into my tunic’s fabric, over my chest. I squeezed my eyes, pushing at my misery, envisioning it leaping from me. My heart would heal if I allowed humility to fill me.
But I was the least humble person I knew. Mountains would have to move before my pride crumbled.
I glanced beyond my heart-center at those around me. Of all the emotions my friends expressed—love for me as a sister, hope I’d stay, faith I could conquer this, sorrow for inflicting agony, fear I might choose an unsound path, among others—I latched on to the wrong one.
Pity.
For my dejected circumstances.
“Pity?” My eyes blurred as they tore into Aneirin’s. “You pity me? My love’s so pathetic you pity me? Isn’t this the worst misfortune you ever beheld, that my suffering causes you to pity me?”
I’d suppressed my feelings for him for eleven years, holding them back so they wouldn’t overwhelm him in their full extent, and never once had Aneirin pitied me.
“I only want to relieve you of this affliction,” he said.
Catrin spread her fingers over my heart. “I can take this away. I can lessen the burden until you’re ready to face everything.”
That Catrin could. She’d studied healing during our years at the university together. She was advanced in the art for her age, able to heal many physical maladies as well as emotional or spiritual ones.
I laced my fingers over hers and dug them into my chest. With dead calm, I muttered, “I want to feel every single stab. I was foolish enough to look and embarrass myself. I deserve to feel this way.”
“No,” Catrin whispered. “Niawen, forgive yourself.” She bled forgiveness into my heart-center, pushing into me, craving my healing while attempting to supersede my will.
I couldn’t numb myself to forget the hurt.
I cast a wall around my heart-center as I ripped her hand off and rushed to Seren. Catrin lunged for me, but my tunic slipped through her fingers. Knowing my intent, Seren gave me a lift, and I slid into the saddle above her wings.
Aneirin trudged through the snow, too far away to intervene. Frenzied anguish slashed through him. He wouldn’t be able to stop me.
Seren reared, and I hugged her long, slender neck for balance. She fanned her pearly white wings while I cast a shield of light around us to hold Catrin and Aneirin off.
Aneirin blasted my shield, but his light collided against mine, the greater might, and petered out. Catrin collapsed to her knees in the snow, too grieved to fight, staring up at me with defeated eyes.
I turned my head away, and Seren jumped over the ledge separating the immortals from the corrupted.
THREE
Where are we flying? Seren asked.
The cold slapped my face as if Aneirin had dealt a final assault. My cheeks burned while I thought about the horrid sorrow in his eyes. He would carry his pain for as long as I carried mine.
I’m sorry this hurts you so much, Seren said.
You’ve always been too kind to me and my reckless attitude. You shouldn’t have to deal with the emotions of an emrys. Especially one as headstrong as me.
Seren snickered. I often wondered why I was drawn to you. Quiet, meek Seren chose the most brazen of emrys.
I grinned. You astounded everyone.
I won’t regret my choice.
I hope you’ll continue to say that. I give you permission to
