Every nightmare I'd ever had about burning paled in comparison to this one. Back arching, I screamed and drummed my heels on the stones until the skin broke and blood filled my shoes. Remiel cursed and straddled me. His hips drove mine down while he grabbed my face with both hands.

"Morana, please. Cosona biacti me, hyrat ti coleo. Cosona biacti me!"

He wasn't Singing, but the old tongue was a Song of its own. Every word hung in the air like the sweetest note, and it reached beyond my pain.

'Come back to me, my other half. Come back to me!'

Remiel's amber eyes locked onto mine. The pain eased. My lungs expanded with the first full breath in what felt like an eternity. The weight of his body on mine increased as he sagged in relief. He choked back a sob before he slid his arms around my body and held me tightly against his chest.

"Is this going to be your new thing?" he demanded, pulling back suddenly. His jaw flexed. "Because I'm going to tell you right now. I can't fucking take it anymore."

"Be careful, Remy," I said, my voice a weak whisper as he shifted, so I sat in his lap instead of beneath him. "You might make me think you like me a little."

A strangled sound escaped him. I didn't have the strength to lift my head, but I could feel his eyes burning into my skull. That was okay. I had suffered greater fires before and survived.

"You're going to be the death of me, Morana."

That jolted me. Pushing against him, I leaned back to look at him. His arms cradled my back, keeping me upright.

"Don't say things like that. I couldn't–"

Couldn't live without you.

I snapped my mouth closed to swallow the confession. Where had such a thought come from? He had admitted to kissing me to save me from the nightmares. What followed was a result of the rush created by being in danger. That didn't make us more than friends.

'Come back to me, my other half.'

"Morana, you couldn't what?"

Remiel tipped my chin up and leaned in close. Another inch and I could kiss him. Oh, how much I wanted to kiss him, but—

"Mara," I blurted out.

Confusion clouded his eyes. Then panic. "Was that another nightmare? Did she take you again?"

"No. It was a memory." I gripped his shoulders, excitement pushing away the awkwardness between us. "Of the night Mara burned me."

A feather light touch on my shoulder drew my attention to it, and I held my breath as he pushed down the neck of my tunic to reveal the scars. Beneath his gentle caress, they didn't seem so ugly.

"So, she really did this to you." Anger grated the words together. "Why?"

"She didn't do it on purpose. The memory was of the night of the siege on the capital. She took me to the dungeons beneath the palace."

"There's no exit from there," he said, his fingers still making slow loops on my skin.

My skin pebbled as his touch drifted lower, moving down my back. It made it hard to concentrate, and I didn't think he realized what he was doing. And in no world would I tell him to stop.

"There was a break in the memory. I don't know how we even got down there, but then we were at the portal. We were at Dycidium, and Mother was trapped behind it."

Remiel almost seemed to stop breathing as he listened to me talk. My heart raced as I processed what I'd seen.

"Mara said something about it not being enough to hide Mother in the portal. She drew the flames into herself. Mother begged her to stop. She told her it was too much, and I reached out to grab Mara's hand. And..."

"And you were burned."

"Yes. She didn't burn me on purpose. But Remiel...don't you understand what this means?"

Solemnly, he nodded. "Your mother isn't the one burning Araphel."

"It's Mara, and I don't think we can relight the portal with the Light of the World. I think we have to figure out how to get the fire out of my sister."

Remiel winced. "Things can never be easy, can they?"

"Apparently not. Oh, to think I once thought the worst thing in the world was to be a lower elf. Now, I would give almost anything to be one. To have that simple life."

I laughed. Remiel's hand paused as he looked at me in surprise. "What's funny?"

"Something I remembered about myself as a little girl. I used to stay in trouble for being too adventurous. Me? Can you believe it?"

"Actually, I can."

"You're lying. Ever since I came to Edresh, I've been a mouse. Scared of doing anything that might even be adjacent to something dangerous. That certainly doesn't line up with a little girl who had a penchant for being a troublemaker."

Remiel tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. His other hand resumed its journey, and when he reached the dip in my lower back, he settled it there.

"That was a shadow of the little girl you used to be. One who had suffered and seen too much. If you were truly a little mouse, you would have fainted the moment you realized what I was. Instead, you shouted at me and told me to leave."

"I did, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did."

"Standing up to you wasn't really all that brave. It didn't accomplish anything. If I had been braver and less selfish, Joreen wouldn't have died, and I wouldn't have dismissed all the terrible things happening in Edresh for so long."

"Morana."

His knees lifted, sliding me down until my center was flush against his stomach. I blushed and could not look him in the eye. The hand on my back moved to my right hip, and his other hand went to my left one.

"You don't see it, do you? You were content to hide in the dark until your friends were in danger. You think yourself a coward for it, but the truth is, no one is brave until they have to be. And I think...I think–"

He started and stopped. Then he tried again. I finally raised my eyes to meet his. What I saw there took my breath away.

"You think what?"

Instead of answering me with words, he sealed his lips against mine. I melted into him, throwing my arms around his neck. We clung to one another as we kissed. There would be no blaming nightmares for this one, and whatever doubts I had about whether he wanted me like I wanted him were erased by the rigid length pressing against my center.

"Remy," I whimpered.

My hips tilted forward, and his grip tightened to the point of pain. The tenderness in our kiss vanished, replaced by a fierce heat that had me struggling to move despite his hold.

"For fuck's sake," he growled against my mouth, surging forward so my back pressed into the stones while he held his body over mine. "You can't do that."

"Why not?" I asked, already missing the friction our previous position had offered. It didn't matter that he still touched me. Still peppered me with kisses as he pinned me down. I needed more.

"Because I'm not going to take you on the ground of a sacred temple. At least not the first time."

A thrill went through me. If he was referring to a first time, then he was already thinking of a second time. His reluctance wasn't born out of a lack of want.

"I don't care."

"I do." He nipped at my lower lip before leaning back. His brows met in the middle as he frowned down at me. "I'm not Tievel. I think you're worth more than a quick round in a tent in the dirt. But maybe I'm wrong about what's happening here. Maybe for you it's just an itch to be scratched, since you can't have the one you really want."

Scooting out from under him, I adjusted my clothes. "You think I still want Tievel?"

The scowl on his face was answer enough. "He tried to kill you! But I've seen how you still look at him. How he crosses your mind all the time."

"There's a part of me that will always think of Tievel."

He scoffed and stood, brushing off his pants as he stormed across the garden. I followed him. This time, we weren't going to sweep this under the rug. Time was too precious.

"You can't be angry at me for that. I loved him."

His cloak rippled around him, pulling the darkness to him. "I don't want to talk about Tievel anymore."

"Tough." I stepped in front of him. "I can't change the past, including the fact that I thought I was in love with Tievel. Turns out I was just in love with the idea of him, and I think he was a little in love with the idea of a girl who needed him. It was all a lie, and when he touched me, it never felt like this."

"This?" His eyes gleamed in the moonlight as they cut toward me.

I rose on tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his lips. He trembled but didn't reach for me. "Hyrat ti coleo. Is it true?"

"No." My heart crumbled, but before I could turn away, Remiel pulled me to him. "It doesn't even begin to describe how I feel. You're not just my other half. You're my everything."

"In this life and all the ones to come."

We held one another, basking in this new connection between us. I hadn't completely grasped what this meant since I'd just recently allowed myself to admit that I had feelings for Remiel. But in his arms and looking back, I could see where the seeds of our bond had been sewn. Perhaps only a few tender sprigs had broken through the surface, but already the roots went far deeper than the ones I'd had with Tievel.

"We need to get to the palace," I said, feeling suddenly shy as I stepped out of Remiel's embrace. "I think we can get to the portal through the dungeons."

He nodded, taking my hand and leading me toward the temple's entrance. "It's only a day's ride north of here, and we can—"

"Remy!" I screamed, dragging him back into the atrium as the world outside the temple burst into flames. Sweat rolled down my skin as the temperature shot up so high it was hard to breathe. But we were safe. Inside the temple, we weren't burning.

"Shit," he muttered, his eyes reflecting the fire. "We're trapped."