Page 56 of Reborn
He shook his head. “I didn’t want to be in the Royal Selection. I didn’t want to have to marry some Princess I didn’t care about. I didn’t want any of it… but perhaps, if I had known you better…”
I angled my head to the side. “Valerian…”
“We have been through life and death together. We have crossed the barrier between worlds, tangled with Fate itself, travelled to the very edges of the Winter Kingdom… I would not trade this experience for the world, and it would not have been possible if not for what you did.”
“You realize we’re probably going to die at the end of all this, right?”
“Better to have lived a short life knowing love than to live a long life alone.”
My heart stopped. Skipped. Stopped again. A ball wedged itself in my throat that I had to swallow down. “Love?” I asked.
He gently tugged me closer to him. “I have never met another person like you before, and I never will. You are frustrating, you are reckless, you are stubborn—”
“—wait, where is this going?”
“But you are also kind, and brave, and strong. I will go with you to the ends of this world and the next, if it means I can remain by your side. I didn’t know we were each other’s soulmates before I fell in love with you. Now that I do, I know, it was simply meant to be.”
“You’re… in love with me…” I breathed. “Valerian, I… I…”
“You’re just as stubborn as I am,” I said, “You know that, right?”
“No, I’m sure you win that contest.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“And I’m yours. Now, tomorrow, and always.”
“He’s going to run off if you don’t say it back,” came Gullie’s voice from the bundle of furs she was wrapped up in.
My cheeks flushed, and I couldn’t help but smile. Tears began to well up in my eyes, but I couldn’t stop smiling. I took Valerian’s cheeks in my hands and pulled myself toward him, pressing my lips gently against his. “I love you,” I whispered against his mouth. “I never wanted love until I found you. Maybe I should’ve just waited and gone through the Selection. We could’ve avoided all of this.”
“That was never Fate’s plan,” he said. “Everything happened exactly as it was supposed to. Besides, you would have ended up marrying Cyr. He was always going to win.”
“You were better than he was at everything.”
Valerian shrugged. “You know that doesn’t matter when it comes to the Selection.”
A cold breeze moved between us, then—snaking its way past my ears, along the nape of my neck, and the tips of my antlers. When it didn’t slow down but instead grew stronger, and more forceful, I knew, something was wrong. Turning my eyes up at the sky, I saw the clouds were churning, and turning, the wind picking up speed and intensity.
Then I saw my brother rushing toward me, his eyes dark and as sharp as the edge of a blade.
“What is it?” Gullie asked, sitting upright in her bundle of furs. “What’s happening?”
“She’s coming,” said Radulf. “Malys is coming.”
CHAPTERNINETEEN
Iknew she would come. We all did. I just hadn’t expected her to have arrived so quickly, or so dramatically. The skies darkened, the clouds churned, and on the back of it all came a cackling laughter that made my blood run cold. It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t ridiculous, it was a chilling sound that I felt all the way in my bones.
“We need to leave,” I said, “Is there a quick way down the mountain?”
“It’s too late,” Radulf said. “She’s already here. If we start heading down the mountain now, she’ll catch us on our way down, and it’ll be much worse.”
“We mount a defense here, then,” said Valerian. “We give her everything we have.”
Radulf nodded. “I like the way he thinks,” he said.
“You’re both insane,” I said.