I sit on the couch, whirling Caleb's heartline around my finger. Somehow, Caleb granting me my biggest wish of owning his heartline turned out to be more painful than I ever imagined. We've had arguments in the past, but he's never insulted me, and I've never hit him. I never imagined I could. Then again, I never thought I'd kill trolls, cross bridges, and Share with the enemy. Somewhere along the way, we turned into different people, and I can't recognize either of us anymore.

The clock chimes. One hour since Caleb left.

A minute passes and the door creaks open.

I don't turn around.

The door closes. Quiet footfalls pad forward and stop beside the sofa.

Still, I don't turn around. What for? Caleb's hazy outline in my peripheral vision is enough.

He lets out a long breath and walks forward, to the love seat before mine. Slipping off his jacket, he sits down and leans forward, elbows onto knees.

Silence spreads between us and lingers for a long time after. Months of unsaid words hang there, between us, loud and stifling. We messed up, both of us, and finding our way back to where we started unraveling is going to take us some time. That's our silence-- a searching type of quiet where I know we're wondering at what point in our relationship we diverged and whether we can ever get it back. As wrong as we each have been and as angry as we are, in silence we resolve to fix it... somehow.

Standing, Caleb walks around the coffee table and sits on the edge of it, before me. He reaches for my hand where I hold his heartstring and slips the red cord from my fingers. Setting it aside, he draws my heartstring from his shirt pocket and takes my fingers onto his lap. He ties the red thread around my wrist and stares down at it for a moment, then sets my hand back down on my lap where his lingers above mine for a second before slipping away.

I inch forward. In equal silence, I take his heartstring, loop it around his wrist and secure it. Stroking a finger along it, I hold his hand tightly. Our fingers interlock, a mutual apology.

We sit like this for some time, experiencing us, together, accepting that we are broken. This has been long coming. There was no way we could ever fix us if we didn't first accept that there was something to mend and that perhaps it can't ever be.

"What happened to us, Ro?" He shrugs, barely. Grazing his thumb along mine, he shakes his head. "I thought we had this, thought we were solid. Where'd we fall apart?" He lifts his eyes to mine. There's no anger there, just openness and the willingness to accept whatever words I have to say with no judgment.

I meet his stare with an honesty of my own. "I let us go," I confess.

My throat dries at finally hearing the words aloud. "Before my Crossing ceremony, I had so many plans for us, down to what side of the bed we would sleep on, what our morning ritual would be 10 years into our marriage...but I let it go." I take a breath to steady my voice. "When Crossing happened and magic denied me, I felt bare and broken and empty. I had no real powers, no place amongst our people. I hated being in my skin and I just wanted everything to go away, even you. Especially you..."

I bat away a tear, unwilling to let a wobbly voice or teary eyes dissuade me. "You were everything I wanted, while at the same time were everything that was denied me. I loved you as Caleb the person but hated who you were magically. You had everything I wanted. The future we planned together was still there for your taking, only I was no longer a fixed piece, but some interchangeable thing."

"Interchangeable?" He slides onto the edge of the table, my knees between his. Weaving a hand into my hair, he lifts my face. "It's always been you, Ro. Interchangeable? You've always—always had a place at my side, regardless of magic. Everything that's mine is yours."

"But that's not enough." Releasing his hands, I stand, needing to pace. "I prided myself in being your equal. In thoughts of becoming the next Great Mistress, not because I was married to you, but because I had the ability to do it myself. Just like you, I had a future, but in one day, I lost everything. Suddenly the man I loved became the man I envied."

Raking my hair back, I pause by the kitchen bar and grip the knobs on the bar stool as if an anchor to strength. "Whenever you would try to make it better, it only got worse. While I wanted you closer, I wanted you to go away. I wanted you to hurt the way I hurt. I was in a dark place, and your promises and love were a light I couldn't stand."

A patch of clouds eclipses the moon and shadows stretch toward me, as though to remind me of Roane's words. "I let darkness in and it ruined us, and I'm sorry."

Caleb comes up close behind me and slides his hands along my arm until cradling them on top mine. He kisses the top of my head.

"I'm the one that's sorry." He laces his fingers with mine. "I spent so much time trying to make everything better that I never once stopped to ask you how you felt. I just wanted to help, to give you the magic I thought you wanted. To let you know that you weren't alone. When I saw you with Roane, I..." He exhales and releases me, stepping away. "He saved you the way I was supposed to. He shared with you and you accepted, yet denied me each time. I thought I'd finally lost you and I just snapped." 

His lips flatten, and he brushes at his eyes before a tear falls. "I'm sorry. You never did anything to make me doubt you, and the way I acted was wrong."

I walk into his arms that fold around my waist. Curling at his chest, I hold him tighter. "Thank you," I whisper, but while I should feel better that we've found some middle ground--however unstable and uncertain-- I'm more scared than ever. "What are we going to do now?"

He kisses the top of my head and releases me. "You're going to stay here. Maybe I can catch up with Roane before he gets too far."

I look at the clock and my heart dampens. "He left more than a half hour ago."

"But he's weak," he says, sliding on his jacket. "Chances are he hasn't made it too far."

I nod, unable to get a word out through the worry lodged in my throat. What if Roane didn't make it? Worse, what if he did and he thinks we'll never help him? What if he decides that none of this was worth it and he chooses to take on the darkness? What if he has no other choice?

Caleb kisses my cheek and pulls me from thought. "We'll find him, Ro, I promise. Don't worry."

He's never broken a promise made to me, but watching him walk out, I fear that there's a first time for everything.

* * *

The sky is clear and no clouds shield the moonlight. Standing by the window, I take in the stillness, the quiet disturbed only by the gentle rhythm of the clock ticking and my breathing. The trees below wave in a gust of wind, but their dance of gnarled branches and blooming leaves don't pull my eyes away from the darkness between their trunks. I step closer to the glass as if able to walk through it. Roane is out there, in the darkness somewhere. Turning my eyes up to the moon, to the streams of light reaching to the world below, my heart strums. "Please, guide him home. Please..."

My voice breaks and the moon blurs behind my tears. I lean my head against the glass and follow the shattered streams of light down to the forest as Roane's words whisper in my mind.

 Sometimes a new light shines a little brighter. You see clearer, differently. What you thought was one way, isn't. It's changed, or you changed, and it just isn't what you want anymore.

In the silvery moonlight, I realize that what I thought was one way has changed. Lines have been crossed and things shared, and in the tangle of it all, I'm not sure what I want anymore. 

But, I turn and find my way to bed. With every moment Caleb doesn't return, I'm forced to admit it's too late. Forced to admit that Roane is gone. Wherever he is, he has something that belongs to me. And without it, I feel hollow, numb and heartless.

Thank you so much for reading. This is a quiet chapter but it's one of my favorite chapters in the book (and probably that I've ever written.) 

Anyway, please vote and comment if you enjoyed it! xx

Monica