A Baron of Bonds (Conduit of Light #2)

64. Saelyn

Chapter 64

Saelyn

I would be seventeen in one day, and I discovered I loved to dance.

Or at least, I loved to dance with Thevin.

Pah-Pah had revealed something he called a cylindrical turner, a device that played the sound of music through an enormous piece of gold shaped like a morning glory blossom.

He’d brought me an entire box of cylinders with tiny raised markings that flicked over wide, thin tines, playing notes that echoed through the golden flowerhead. He showed me how to turn the handle and music would play.

I’d never seen anything like it. Neither had Thevin when I took him to my room to show him the stunning invention.

“You pick one of these,” I said, holding a gold cylinder with hundreds of raised markings, “and then you fit it in here like this.” I snapped it into place, lowering the tines and turning the handle. “When it reaches a stop, you let go and listen!”

The music began to chime, fast and joyous, something my feet itched to move to. The handle began to spin backward, unwinding to play the song, and I took Thevin’s hands as we spun around laughing. He twirled me around and around until I thought I’d fall, before catching me, which he seemed particularly good at, and I laughed into his warm chest.

He was at least a whole head taller than me, and I had to pull mine all the way back to really see him. A grin crossed his lips, revealing his one dimple, and his blue eyes shone bright with mischief.

I teasingly shoved him away, laughing with him and taking the cylinder from its home, pulling another one and snapping it into place before winding the handle.

The music began, soft and low.

“Oh, this one’s slow,” I murmured, reaching down to replace it.

He caught my arm and said, “Leave it. I like slow.”

He pulled my hand to his shoulder, bent slightly to grab the other, and then placed it on the other side. He wrapped his own hands around my waist, and I gulped, my body sending a shiver through me.

I wanted him to touch me. I wanted him to bend forward and kiss me.

No.

No, I did not.

If he did, everything would change.

Like Pah-Pah had said, if we did not take risks, we would live the same. The same life we had always lived.

I wasn’t sure this was a risk I was willing to take while not knowing the outcome of something blossoming between us. I was still content to stay here, never changing a thing, seeing him each day of summer and soaking in his laugh, his eyes that would twinkle in mirth, seeping into my heart to tug—jolting me from a steady heartbeat to a racing one.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he murmured, swaying us slowly around to the light tines of the song that filled my room.

“I’m thinking about the party.”

He smirked. “Liar.”

I shrugged, looking down as we moved slowly to the rhythm.

“Ask me.” He nudged my foot with his.

“Ask you what?”

“Ask me what I’m thinking.”

I huffed and rolled my eyes, doing my best to keep a ridiculously wide grin from forming on my face. “My dear friend, Thevin, what are you thinking about this very moment?”

“How beautiful you are,” he returned.

No, no, no, no.

My heart pounded, furiously urging me to accept the risk it wanted to take.

I gave a small chuckle and said, “You should see my gown for the party. My mother wrote to a friend and had it specially made for?—”

“I’m not talking about your gown, Sae. I’m talking about you. Right now. Right here.” He lifted a hand to my face. “Like this.”

I shook my head and swallowed. “Don’t. Don’t say that.”

“I will say that. I will say it because it is true. And you should know it.”

“Don’t say anything else then.”

“What if I want to? What if I have a lot more to say?” He grinned wickedly. “I thought you liked hearing my voice.”

“Please,” I begged, “stop. Stop talking like this. Nothing is going to change. I don’t want us to change. I want to stay like this. I want to be happy here, with you, like this.”

“What if there’s more than this, Sae? What if I want more than this?”

I backed away, my arms leaving the place I wanted to stay forever, the music long since silenced. “You can’t have it.” I shook my head. “I won’t risk losing you, Thevin. You’re too important to me.”

“You wouldn’t be losing anything. We would gain something. Something already started that neither of us are going to stop.”

“Please,” I whispered, “don’t.”

“So, what?” He threw his arms into the air and then crossed them at his chest. “You want me to visit you every summer, and we’ll dance to music and ride lumens through the trees? You’ll boss me around, and I’ll pretend to hate it? You’ll smile at me, and I’ll pretend it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t pierce me and heal over, forever marking me with you no matter what I see out there? No matter how difficult the world is outside of this place?”

He chuckled and looked down at his feet, shaking his head. When he looked back up, his eyes were the brightest blue, like a lightning strike over a gray sky. “I can’t do it, Sae. Don’t ask me to do that because I can’t. ”

“You’ll leave me,” I whispered, my heart screaming in agony, watching him crumble and confess everything I myself wanted to say. “If it doesn’t work. If you decide you can live without my smile, you’ll leave, and I’ll have nothing. Nothing . You’re the best thing that feels real in my life, and I refuse to risk that. I cannot risk what you ask.”

He backed up to the door, his face a picture of disappointment, hurt, and longing all wrapped up in his beautiful features. He opened the door, one hand on the knob, one arm leaning on the frame. “I don’t know, Sae. The risk feels worth it to me.”

He left.

He left me there with those words to pierce my skin and forever scar me.

I should have raced after him. I should have caught him in the hall and kissed him, admitting that I had loved him far longer than he knew—that I would risk everything just to see him happy. I should have reversed time, just by one minute and listened to more, accepted more, confessed more.

But I didn’t.

And as the minutes ticked by and my spell could no longer reverse time that far, I just stood there, breaking my own damn heart, and listening to my name echo through the room in a numbing whisper as the tines clicked in a rhythm to the song’s end.