I want to be someone worthy of you.
When someone goes on a long journey, those who stay behind wish them the energy of a wildfire. The power to take things that try to hinder you – wind, thrashing enemies – and use them to make you stronger. The power to burn so brightly that all who look will wonder how darkness ever existed in the same world as you.” She puts a hand on my shoulder, but her resolve breaks, her eyes glassy. “Scorch this world, Winter queen.
I must’ve glided right by him, grouping his half-naked body in with all the other half-naked bodies. In my defense, there are a lot of good examples of Cordell’s training rituals here.
You may have trapped me in this... but you aren’t the first man to underestimate me, so may I advise you to start treating me with a little more respect, King Noam.
A Winterian wielding an Autumnian weapon, using Cordellan allegiance to bring Spring crumbling down.
All I ever wanted was for you to look at me.
I’m not just me anymore. I’m a whole kingdom, and I can’t make mistakes.
I am mistakes and victories and death and life. I am competent and powerful and strong, and whatever this war brings my way – even death – I will face it like the queen I am.
Like he sees me, truly sees me, no matter how I am... Like he sees all the sacrifices he’s made and doesn’t regret a single one.
I have no idea how to go about bridging the distance between us- I just keep telling myself, maybe foolishly, that when he’s ready, he’ll talk to me again.
I miss him. So much my chest aches, and I can’t believe the ache hasn’t killed me yet.
This day has done its best to pick me apart, one emotional event after another.
It hasn’t been more than a couple of weeks since I saw him, but my mind throbs with missing him, and I wonder if that pain has been here all along, and I just haven’t noticed it.
Just because it wouldn’t cure everything doesn’t mean it wouldn’t make things better than they are.
He’d entered this war to save his sister. Now he’d have to win it to save them all.
The way he says it is a promise and a declaration and a plea all in one.
That’s how we all are, too hard for what we should be. We should be a family, not soldiers. But all that really connects us is stories, and memories, of what should be.
The question tumbles out of my mouth like a smooth stone in a stream, its edges worn clean by how often I roll it around in my head.
Flags snap in the breeze above us, banners with a lavender stalk in front of a golden maple leaf on a green background.
Mather wrapped his fingers around her wrist and pulled her forward, cupping the back of her head as he slid his face down to hers. He hovered just shy of her lips, panting, choking because, ice above, this moment – this was everything, the entirety of his life expanding from this one act, revolving around her because she was at the center of everything good that had ever happened to him.