ততততত

𝐈 𝐌 𝐎 𝐆 𝐄 𝐍

The thief calls this place home.

From the sheltering peaks of Mt. Elora that reflect off the lake's waters, to the ivy-coated structure of an old home abandoned long ago—this is the one place I know Tobin will run off to as a sanctuary.

Nephthys greets me before Tobin does, neighing loudly and trotting in my direction. I expect her to fight, to bite and nip to get me to stay away. After what Tobin did, we're no longer allies. He's chosen to side with Adorid, and I will never stray away from my own regime. Instead, Neph greets me with such fondness as she nudges me towards the homestead. I'm not sure if she's infatuated with me or my horse.

I dismount my steed to stroke Neph's mane. "Where is he?" I whisper to her.

Tobin told me once that his stallion is quite protective of him, trained to guard him like a watchdog. Yet, she senses me as no threat, as if she's unaware of the trust Tobin destroyed between us.

A fire cackles outside of the homestead, and I catch the door open. Tobin leans against the frame with a bottle of amber liquid in his hand, his shirt missing, bare foot, and his brown hair a disarray of cowlicks and curls. I notice his sword—the blade pierced into the soil and casting eerie shadows that stretch into the meadow. He's stripped his guard down in his completely foolish drunken state.

I march up towards the fire, pulling an arrow from my quiver. My fingers curl around the arrow's shaft as I prepare to jam the iron head deep into his throat.

Tobin will pay for what he's done to my family, to my kingdom, to every vein in my body.

Tobin presses the drink to his lips before I reach him, dropping the now-emptied glass bottle to the ground.

I set a hand to his chest and shove him into the stone walls of the structure. I keep him captive in my grasp, digging the sharpened point of my arrow to his throat. He gulps as I let it dig into his skin, yet not harsh enough to leave a cut. The necklace I gave him that first night dangles around his neck, a golden crescent moon etched with vines, a small reminder of what once blossomed between us as if our love were white orchids.

I expect him to fight, to taunt me.

Instead, he takes it. Those kind brown eyes are shrouded in guilt and sorrow, but also drunk beyond belief. He watches me in a strange sense of awe and pity, such admiration.

Tears swell in the rims of my eyes.. "It was you... wasn't it?"

His kind brown eyes lower their gaze, and his voice comes out in a slurred broken truth. "Yes, princess."

Those two words—yes, princess—allow me to fall apart. Yes is the one word that he needed to say to make all my suspicions and conspiracies true. Yet, he finishes off the confession with a reverent title to me: princess. He always calls me that. Rarely does this thief call me Imogen.

"Why?" I hiss out, digging the arrow deeper into his skin. He cranes his head, giving me more access to make the fatal cut. He takes it all willingly, as if he knew I'd come for him.

He stays silent, although his body drunkenly lulls to the right. I press a palm against his rib, straightening him out in my hold.

"You stole everything from me," I cry. "You wandered my castle's halls until you took every secret we had. I was stupid to reveal those passages to you, because that's how you managed to sneak around unscathed."

His kind eyes widen, those kind deceitful eyes.

"You stole my life and gave it to Leighton, to Adorid, to the enemy. You told me yesterday that if he ever laid a finger on me, I'll tell you. Well, look at me. He's going to lay more than a finger on me. It'll be his whole hand. His body. His weight."

His body reacts to this, pools of guilt building within his blood as it poisons him whole. He still loathes the idea of Leighton and I, and yet that's where I'll end up.

"You..." my voice breaks, and I struggle to speak through the onslaught of tears. "You stole me, Tobin. Everything that I am was yours, and you tore me apart."

Salted tears draw rivulets against my skin, and Tobin stares. Those kind brown eyes watch each droplet carve a river down my rosy cheeks.

"Why?" I beg, shaking my head in a helpless sob.

Despite the arrow to his neck, he lifts a calloused finger to below the rim of my eye. His knuckles graze underneath my lashes, the touch gentle yet cautious.

"Princess..." his fingertips fall down my cheek, then cup underneath my chin. "I am a fool for falling in love with you."

My heart saturates the word love in such need. He's never spoken it before aloud, although it always braced at the edges of our lips with every layered kiss. Vows became oaths written on our hearts, and now those oaths can never be erased. All that beauty and love we found is nothing but dust.

He takes my arm, ushering me to lower my stance. I do. His palm slips down to my wrist, linked around the delicate skin, where he holds me tight. Those kind brown irises lift up to meet mine, ready to obey my every command. Yet, it is I who listens to him, to his plea.

"My heart is too fucking soft," he mutters, his voice slurred. "You took a hold of me and I couldn't let go. For fuck's sakes, I can't let go."

I take a step back, tears streaming down my cheeks as I stare at him. Heart numb. Ribs aching. "We would have had to let go eventually," I breathe. "Just not like this."

I fantasized about how I would put my love for Tobin to rest, about how I would say goodbye to the thief that swept me like the rushing current beneath me. Forever, I'll remember him for that crooked smile that dances his lips, and the constellations of whipping scars that deform his back.

He pushes himself away from the wall, stumbling towards the fire. "I had to choose Aspen."

Aspen?

He lifts his eyes to me. "Aspen. My sister. Leighton has her." His fingertips dance over the handle of his sword, the leatherbound handle molded to his clutch. "Gareth came to me and said I could return things to the way they were if I found a way into that fucking room, and now I wait for him to tell me I can go back to her."

His sister. He did this all for his sister.

"You know, my father told me to run all the way to fucking Lagulon," Tobin mumbles. "Told me to leave her and my mother behind and just run, and I fucking listened."

He cranes his head in my direction, running a hand through his deep brown hair. There's a look of devastation that fans his features, almost as if the thought of his sister leaves him in pain.

"Leighton wanted my family dead, and yet he's the one that could bring me back," his jaw ticks, strained under the turmoil roaring in his heart. "I let you see a part of me know one else in this fucking world ever has, but I failed Aspen, and this is how I will fix it."

"Tobin—"

"Go back to the castle, princess," he grits, then wanders back to the entrance where I stand. He mirrors me, his nose only mere inches from mine. "Go before I fail Aspen again because of you."

He tilts his head, softly brushing those drunken lips against mine for a slow, featherlight kiss, until the kiss itself remains nonexistent. With his mouth pressed to mine, he tastes of wine and whiskey, sweet yet rough. But when I open my eyes, he's already gone. Tobin pushes the door to the homestead open and stumbles inside, shutting it behind him.

It's so unlike Tobin to leave me alone, yet here I am. He made his choice, and he chose his sister.

My mind races in circles, attempting to comprehend that he willingly sacrificed me to save his sister. Anger arises in me, hints of the betrayal still eft behind, but the brisk whispers of revenge quickly transform into a strange empathy. Of course he'd choose his family over a princess he would never be able to marry, to love without fear of death. What if it were me? What if it were Ruslan on the line?

Yet, Tobin just revealed parts of himself that I've never known before. He's Adoridian, but what caused him to flee? For his father to tell him to save himself before going back for his mother and sister? Leighton is more than an enemy to Tobin than I thought, and yet he's the one that could grant Tobin his greatest wishes, to save Aspen...

Aspen.

I blink once, then narrow my gaze on the shut homestead door.

Aspen.

I've heard the name before.

I return my arrow to the quiver and pound my fist against the door. "Tobin!"

Nothing. He won't answer me. He made himself clear enough: he wants me gone, out of his life so he can forever be bound to his sister.

But I've seen his sister. I've met her and spoken to her. It was her who rescued me in my darkest hour, for it was her who ended Leighton's knife before he could instill more damage upon me. The girl with a voice of steel and eyes so kind, the girl with a storm brewing beneath her skin—is Tobin's sister.

"Tobin, please open up," I cry, thinking of the handmaiden that guided me back to the safe haven of my bedroom.

The door remains closed.

I set my hand on the handle, giving it a harsh tug. It breaks off the old rusted hinges, and I storm into the shadows of the structure. The firelight from outside flickers through the open door and the broken windows. It reflects off the emptied glass bottles that have been dropped in a careless drunken mess around him. Through the veil of darkness between us, the light reaches his scarred skin as he sits at the edge of a cot, a bottle to his lips, his brown irises locked on his princess.

"Tell me about Aspen," I whisper. "I want to know what happened to her."

"You don't want to fucking know—"

"I do, and I want to know every little thing about your family," I breathe. "You love Aspen, so what happened that drove you apart?"

He takes another swig of his drink, then stands up from the edge of the bed. He towers over me, and bare sculpted skin meets my eyes. He taps the edge of my chin, lifting my attention back up to his kind eyes. Only now, they're shrouded in smoke in ash. He's lost in a memory of a time long ago.

It's then, my thief finds his words. They're a slur, a mixture of sobriety and a drunken numbness, but they're there.

And he spills everything.

── •✧• ──

If I had a nickel for the amount of times Imogen has held an arrow to Tobin's neck... I'd have three nickels, I think. So that's enough for a chocolate bar or something. In this case, he deserves it for breaking Imogen's poor heart, but we all know Aspen needs some rescuing.

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