Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices #2)(99)
"It's been weird ever since we-ever since I started dating Mark," she said, holding his gaze with her own. "But it's not because of Mark. It's because of us. What we did."
"We'll be fine," he said. "There's no rule book for this, no guidance. But we don't want to hurt each other, so we won't."
"There've been parabatai in the past who started hating each other. Think of Lucian Graymark and Valentine Morgenstern."
"That won't happen to us. We chose each other when we were children. We chose each other again when we were fourteen. I chose you, and you chose me. That's what the parabatai ceremony is, really, isn't it? It's a way of sealing that promise. The one that says that I will always choose you."
She leaned against his arm, just the lightest touch of her shoulder against his, but it lit up his body like fireworks over the Santa Monica Pier. "Jules?"
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
"I will always choose you, too," she said, and, laying her head on his shoulder, shut her eyes.
* * *
Cristina woke out of an uneasy sleep with a start. The room was dim; she was curled on the foot of the bed, her legs drawn up under her. Kieran was sleeping a drugged sleep propped against pillows, and Mark was on the floor, tangled in blankets.
Two hours, Nene had said. She had to check on Kieran every two hours. She looked again at Mark, decided she couldn't wake him, sighed, and rose to a sitting position, edging up the bed toward the faerie prince.
Many people looked calm in their sleep, but not Kieran. He was breathing hard, eyes darting back and forth behind his eyelids. His hands moved restlessly over the bedcovers. Still, he did not wake when she leaned forward to push up the back of his shirt with awkward fingers.
His skin was fever-hot. He was achingly lovely so close, though: His long cheekbones matched his long eyes, their thick lashes feathering down, his hair a deep blue-black.
She quickly changed out the poultice; the old one was half-soaked with blood. As she leaned forward to pull his shirt back down, a hand clamped around her wrist like a vise.
Black and silver eyes gazed up at her. His lips moved; they were chapped and dry.
"Water?" he whispered.
Somehow, one-handedly, she managed to pour water from a pitcher on the nightstand into a pewter cup and give it to him. He drank it without letting go of her.
"Maybe you do not remember me," she said. "I am Cristina."
He put the cup down and stared at her. "I know who you are," he said, after a moment. "I thought-but no. We are in the Seelie Court."
"Yes," she said. "Mark is asleep," she added, in case he was worried.
But his mind seemed far away. "I thought I would die this night," he said. "I was prepared for it. I was ready."
"Things do not always happen when we think they will," Cristina said. It didn't seem that convincing a remark to her, but Kieran appeared comforted. Exhaustion was sweeping over his face, like a curtain sliding across a window.
His grip tightened on her. "Stay with me," he said.
Jolted by surprise, she would have replied-perhaps even refused-but she did not get the chance. He was already asleep.
* * *
Julian lay awake.
He wanted to sleep; exhaustion felt as if it had soaked into his bones. But the room was full of dim light and Emma was maddeningly close to him. He could feel the heat from her body as she slept. She had pushed away part of the bedspread that covered her, and he could see her bare shoulder where the dress she wore had slipped down, and the shape of the parabatai rune on her arm.
He thought of the storm clouds outside the Institute, the way she'd kissed him on the Institute steps before Gwyn had come. No, best to be truthful with himself. Before she'd pulled away and said his brother's name. That had been what ended it.
Perhaps it was just too easy to fall back into inappropriate emotion when they were already so close. Part of him wanted her to forget him and be happy. Part of him wanted her to remember the way he remembered, as if the memory of what they had been like together were a living part of his blood.
He ran his hands restlessly through his hair. The more he tried to bury such thoughts, the more they bubbled up, like water in the rock pool. He wanted to reach down and draw Emma toward him, capture her mouth with his-kiss the real Emma and erase the memory of the leanansídhe-but he would have settled for curling her close against his side, holding her through the night and feeling her body expand and contract as she breathed. He would have settled for sleeping through the night with only their smallest fingers touching.