rade

Don’t. Their eyes met across the chasm that separated them, golden fire and moss-covered stone touching one another for the briefest of moments. Anath’s lips curled back in a silent snarl, her body listing angrily forward. And this— this was how things should be between them. All sharp edges and unyielding walls. All bitterness and contempt and hurts unearthed anew each time they were buried. It was all they’d known of each other before things became all tangled; it was all they’d ever seen But— Don’t act like the fault is mine alone. —but once he’d borne witness to the fawn-colored woman’s hidden truths, there was no forgetting them. Once the walls were torn away and the splintered shards of their enmity were worn down to smooth curves, there was no going back. Somehow, they (<>i>they) had rearranged their flaws and fissures, coming together into something that was miraculously whole.

And as much as Rade might hunger for the simplicity of pushing her and everyone else away, there was no going back. Not anymore.

Do you think I don’t know that? The old General spat as if answering his thoughts. Hell, maybe she was. They were too similar in the way that they thought and felt; too similar in the way that they faced their trials. Anger— it was the only thing either of them had never known. It was familiar, and a comfort in its familiarity. Because anger— it made them feel strong even in their moments of weakness. It made them feel powerful, even when they were powerless. And feeling the tug of that helplessness when his gaze fell on the boy tucked into Anath’s left side, the roan bachelor fought to find that anger again. To nurse it like a flame, feeding it kindling composed of every petty act the Vulcans had ever committed against him. Of the indifference they’d shown to Cullen’s continued reign. Shit, Cullen. His dark and violent legacy. His cycle of mistakes come around full circle. "Then you shouldn’t have let them," Rade snarled. "You should have— you should have—"

She should have kill them. They should have never been born. But Rade couldn’t say it, he— he just couldn’t. Knees buckling beneath him, the stallion took a couple steps forward and then crumpled down in front of the bone-colored mare, chewing at the air in supplication. Begging her— and the world— to undo this one thing. Only this. He would relive Debonaire’s death a hundred times for that chance. He would let himself be sucked beneath the sea’s waves. He would— he would take Cherish’s place as the price of his defiance, and die gladly beneath the hooves of his eldest son. Anything.

But the world— like Anath— was unmovable. Unyielding.

Open your eyes, Rade. Without thinking, the palomino obeyed. Flicking his amber eyes open, he looked up at the champagne mare and their children, the sides of his throat squeezing together. Through a veil of tears, the three pale bodies blurred together and became one. We’re here, and they’re here. We need to make the most of the time we have left, for their sake. Anath made it sound so simple, so certain. But he— he was afraid. "Everything I’ve done has been for their sake," he whispered brokenly. And for the most part, it was true. He’d never meant to leave another legacy in this way, but the future he’d been working towards was for the sake of children who might, hopefully, grow to see a better world. "But Anath, I—" The words tangled together on his lips, and Rade fell briefly silent. He didn’t know why it should be harder to tell the General than his own daughter, but it was. It was so hard that he fought for a long moment before he could find his voice— so hard that when he spoke, it was with the indecent haste of one tearing a bandaid off a wound. And there— in the bald words of his confession— was the reason he’d run away from her.

"I’m already dying. I don’t— I don’t have much time left."

And in hers, the reason he’d come running back.

We need to make the most of the time we have left.

stallion / palomino roan / arab mix / 15.1 hh