The heartbeat is frenetic.
Absolute chaos in his chest.
Because the heart has closed itself in a fist and it shudders and spasms and he realizes then that it is the heart that chases those tears down his cheeks. And it feels like drowning. Like so many thousands of pounds of grief splintering the ribcage. But he is stronger than the son who found himself crippled by the pain. He does not bow beneath it, Jarris, but stands taller. Because the pain belongs to him, the pools of gold at his feet belong to him, the blood running in rivulets from all of the places the thorns bite into the tender flesh belongs to him.
She says his name and the shape of it on her tongue is just as sweet as it’s always been. So much sweeter than it had been there so many hundreds of feet underground. It had been barbed there, clipped, as if it disgusted her just to have to say it. She says it now and it feels like coming home, just as it always has. He exhales the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, lets her pull her mouth down the length of his face.
Loves her so much that it aches.
She wasn’t there and the relief that surges through him is potent enough to be felt over the terrible sickness in his heart. But this isn’t a dream. She’s sure Kennice is fine but there’s no way for her to know that. His throat tightens, a vise that stifles his breath. He shakes his head. How it pains him to look her in the eye and tell her what he has to tell her.
“I killed her,” he whispers and does not allow himself to look away. “Plumeria, I killed her.” The voice shakes but he goes on looking at her, even as those tears cloud his vision, make it difficult for him to make out the shape of her face. He doesn’t have to see her clearly to know that face, though. Knows it better than any other, certainly. “Twice.”
She should have stopped him, should have stopped him from going to the mountain where so many strange things happened. He shakes his head a second time. He frowns pointedly and reaches out to kiss her head. “You couldn’t have stopped me,” he murmurs into the warmth of her skin. And what he doesn’t say hangs heavy in the air between them, you’ve never been able to stop me before.