Page 47 of A Kiss of Flame
Over the last few weeks, Barith had begun to understand the fears that had loomed heavily over him back home. It wasn’t simply that he was stressed and felt nothing for Sera Ceanadach; it was what she represented. Mating with her would be the end of the life he’d created for himself, and he was afraid if he gave in, he’d spend the rest of his days regretting it. Barith felt the shame of his selfishness, and it was that shame that had kept him silent. Maybe before last night, he might have returned home, swallowed it all, and given in, but now—he couldn’t.
Barith did not intend to do as he was told, but he knew his sisters wouldn’t leave, and he needed to talk to Levian. He needed to understand what last night had meant to both ofthem. “Give me twenty minutes," he grumbled before he dipped out of the room, happy to get a breath free of the oppressive judgment of his sisters.
Bits of clothes, makeup, and other sundries were spread about Levian’s large room downstairs, but she was nowhere to be found. Barith shot upstairs to his room, slamming the door behind him, and immediately snatched his phone from his bedside table. There were missed calls, messages from his sister Flòra, and one from Gwen—nothing from Levian. He was about to call her when he noticed a paper neatly folded atop his bed covers.
His determination to find her was washed away in an instant—the strange sense of foreboding he'd had when he’d woken up and found her missing returned tenfold. His heart began to race as he hesitantly picked up the note; the sapphire necklace she'd wagered him lay beneath. Barith's stomach filled with dread as he reluctantly opened the note. Levian's neat, swirling handwriting glared up at him, but all he saw were blurs of ink. Unsteady, Barith sat at the foot of his bed and took a deep breath before focusing on it again.
Dearest Barith,
Your friendship has meant so much to me, and I’ll forever be grateful for our time together, but I can’t let you put yourself at risk despite what we agreed with the Eldreth. I know you’ll be angry, but let us part with one last beautiful evening of memories. It’s time for you to return home, where you’re needed.
You’ve held Beatrice this long, so I know you’ll take great care of her. Maybe someday I’ll get the chance to win her back again. Until then, I wish you well, Barith, and pray that the Goddesses will bless you and your mate with all the love you desire.
Your friend always,
Levian
Barith crunched the paper in his hand and threw it, as his heart seared like it was being singed with hot pokers. He buckled over, laying his arms on his knees, and glared at the sapphire necklace laid delicately over his dark bed covers. Raw anger and devastation fought within him like raging titans.
After their night together on Beltane, he'd struggled to pretend like what they'd shared had been nothing but a fling fueled by the celebration. But he'd swallowed his disappointment. Levian was dear to him, and he hadn't wanted a single night of passion to muck up their friendship if she wasn't interested in anything more. Plus, he’d known how she was.
Levian had lovers, but the mage had never been one to fall in love. Barith wasn't sure he'd ever seen Levianinlove. She loved her friends and cared for people deeply, but romantic love wasn't something she'd ever seemed interested in, which was why he'd tamped down his desires long ago and let it go. He knew it would be a fool's errand to try and capture her heart, so he hadn't tried.
Last night had been different. It had been more than a passionate embrace fueled by exhaustion, nostalgia, and lust. It had been honest and raw. He’d felt her magick, the way she’d trembled, the tenderness of her touch.
Barith stood, pacing along the foot of his bed. He’d always known he held love for the mage as his friend, but last night, it had become clear how deeply he truly loved her. He’d felt the walls she kept so tightly built around herself come down, and he’d let his down too. It was confusing, and he had no idea what in the Hells it meant, but he loved her. And she’d left—vanished—with only a few scribbled notes on a sheet of paper, as if it would even begin to be enough.
A flicker of memory came to him, of their night together. Their bodies tangled, and how the words of love he’d been sodesperate to say had been on his lips but hadn’t formed. How their magicks had intertwined, and in one brief moment, Barith had felt not just himself but as a part of her.
He growled, unable to do much more as he hauled deep, steadying breaths into his lungs. One of his sisters yelled up the stairs at him, but he barely comprehended.
Desperate and angry, he threw on clothes—mindlessly knocking over bits and bobs as he did—shoved on a pair of boots, grabbed what little currency he could scrounge from drawers, and snatched the sapphire necklace. After he’d tucked his phone into his back pocket, Barith stalked over to the glass doors that led to the shallow balcony off his room and threw them open. The cold, damp air rushed around him but did nothing to lighten the fire raging within him.
It’s time for you to return home, where you’re needed.
Maybe he should go back to the horde as she’d told him and as his mother and honor demanded, but as he peered out the window, Barith knew one thing for certain—the island and his horde were not his home.
“Dammit, Vi,” he grumbled, his heart pounding violently.
His sisters would be furious, and sneaking out was probably cowardly, but he didn’t rightly care. Levian had chosen to leave, but he’d be damned before he’d tuck his tail and let her slip away. Not before she got a chance to hear him out. Not before he could look into her eyes one last time and make sure he hadn’t imagined everything between them. Not if there was even the slightest chance she could truly love him.
“Ye cannot outrun this,” he whispered into the wind to Levian, wherever she was. She couldn’t outrun him, he thought before he took to the sky.
Chapter Fourteen
Levian rubbed her temple as the headache she’d been fighting since leaving London continued to press against her skull. Guilt gnawed at her still. She’d been convinced she’d done the right thing in leaving Barith, but the longer she was away, the more her confidence began to waiver. She pushed past the internal peripheral sense that she’d run away from the dragon and the nausea brought on by using her mother’s traveling stones. Traveling by the stones made her feel like she was being shattered and then smashed back together by magick, but traveling to the small island of Veldaraen was tedious and time-consuming.
The mage pulled her jacket tighter around her middle to brace against the sudden cold as she stepped through the broken stone archway at the island’s edge. Veldaraen, or Door Rock, as it roughly translated in the Faerie tongue, was a speck of land, no more than a hectare in size. It was an eerie place—just a handful of spindly trees, coarse brush, and jagged rock set in the middle of an unwelcome frigid sea. No birds called, no animals moved, no bugs skittered. The cold wind battered her as she walked along the rocky path, weaving between narrow stone crags untilshe reached a roughly carved spiral staircase leading down to the cave below.
Her heart began to thrum with nerves, her skin prickling in response to the presence of the ancient magick, her anxieties rising with each step. Barith and Niah had been with her the last time she’d come. She dipped down into the cave, now shielded from the angry winds. Levian could vividly remember the dragon’s grumbles and curses as they’d dropped into the cave, preparing himself to enter The Prison, all because he’d refused to let her go without him. She stepped off the last step and into a puddle of seawater at the base, using the memory of Barith and the comfort he brought her to urge her forward.
The ancient fae who had constructed The Prison were genius—it was fueled and protected by its own constant magick, requiring no aid or oversight by any outside creature. There were no guards or wardens—no other living thing except the prisoners themselves and the few allowed to visit them. The island existed between the mortal realm and the fae lands of Sylthëa. It was a forgotten place, precisely as it was meant to be—forsaken.
Levian forced her voice steady despite her nerves. “I have come to see Merlin,” she said, “I come alone.”
The air became stale, and the sudden silence made her ears ring. The rough old runes carved into the cave wall before her shimmered as the stone beneath darkened to a liquid black. Levian took a steadying breath. She’d chosen to do this alone, and there was no turning back now. She remembered Barith urging her forward the last time she’d come and stepped forward.
The compression of magick hit her as she passed through the portal, chilling her to the bone, and emerged into the frozen absolute darkness of The Prison—an abyss so vast she could feel its emptiness even if she couldn’t see it. A single orb of light appeared just before her, highlighting the fog of her breath. Thetiny beacon floated forward, only bright enough to illuminate a few steps. She followed, her heartbeat quickening as she felt—or imagined—the touch of something dark, old, and very much alive slithering in the vast, consuming black around her. Barith had loomed at her back before, and she missed his hulking, grumbling presence.