them out of their misery?”
As he kneeled beside her, Rowan’s hand
twitched at whatever horror he beheld, right
over the edge of his discarded hatchet.
Pine and snow and the coppery tang of
blood blended, rising to meet her as his palm
sliced open with the force of that twitch.
“We can keep at this, you know,” Maeve
went on. “Until Orynth lies in ruin.”
Rowan stared sightlessly ahead, his palm
leaking blood onto the snow.
His fingers curled. Slightly.
A beckoning gesture, too small for Maeve
to note. For anyone to note—except for her.
Except for the silent language between them,
the way their bodies had spoken to each other
from the moment they’d met in that dusty
alley in Varese.
A small act of defiance. As he had once
defied Maeve before her throne in Doranelle.
lily
(lily)
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