leave me at the altar, knowing all the things you just escaped
How terribly fond he is of her already. There is nothing left to wonder about where the fire she wields is born from. He knows now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that it is born from her chest. From her belly. From the lungs that also wield that haughty laughter.
He watches her display of defiance with a sense of wonder. The way she tosses her head and flicks her tail and meets him with an unspoken challenge. What a glorious thing she is, he thinks, and doesn’t mind if she hears it. Not that his opinion matters because she already knows. It is no secret.
She will be no mystery. He smiles, though it is nothing like hers. It is a kind of wistful thing, barely there at all. “Sunlight,” he echoes, a fitting name for such a stunning creature. Even if she is the same deep black as twilight. He knows, in the same way that all things know, that the sun is some great ball of flame. Fire and fury. It commands fire just as she commands fire.
He could ask who he is dealing with, but he suspects he knows. And she answers with her actions anyway. They are suddenly encircled by a brilliant ring of fire and he turns his fine head to study the flames. They are both set ablaze by their flickering light and he shifts his focus back to her face again, smiling something secret. The pulse of his fondness strengthens as the flames close in on them, draw them closer together.
There is some flicker of fear, too. Because there is nothing to protect him from the flame. But there is some dark thrill in being at her mercy, too.
“My name is Isakov,” he tells her, acutely aware of the heat. “And I’m afraid that there would be precious little unraveling to do, even if I did intend to be a mystery.” He exhales a shuddering breath and glances between her face and the flame. “I do not wield the same power you wield.”
