You can’t, Zevulun.

His eyelids closed swiftly to hide the hurt that’d show there not because of Daire, but because what she said was true, and he knew it. The sorrow that trembled in her voice rushed through him and his eyes closed tighter. He pushed back against the surprising anger that rose inside him, the frustration at finding himself denied his wants at every turn and not understanding why. Zevulun’s blue eyes burned when they opened, and they found Daire’s pain-stricken face, and their fire dwindled.

I'd hate to be the sin that stains your soul a shade too deep for heaven.

A few silent seconds ticked by. Zevulun watched Daire before he shook his head and whispered raspily, “No, Daire,” with a warm huff of semi-translucent air. “You could never be a sin, not to me.”

He was the sinner. Since the beginning of time he had always been the culprit, the master-hand behind his own demise and behind the demise of those who chose to love him. Daire had come to the islands in an attempt to carve a new life for herself; to savor the last remaining years she had and spend it being a devoted and loving mother to her children. If she had not crossed Zevulun’s path that fateful night on Crossing Isle, maybe she would have. If he had not felt a piece of himself attached to her, become obsessed with this belief that she understood and shared his pain… She could have been free from him, too.

At least Riesling had enough self-preservation to see that she needed to cut herself loose from his web.

Zevulun had been a colt at the time his older sister, Maziel, told him of what their father believed of their bloodline. Of it being cursed. He remembered rolling his eyes and blowing an exasperated breath at her story, but now, seventeen years later, he heard her again. Father thinks he’s cursed, he heard her soft almost-whisper voice again, the Prairie is cursed, too. Evil brought him into this world and he said evil stayed in the Prairie. That’s why he banished us from going there.. Hadn’t Zevulun even chuckled a little bit after she’d said that, thinking she was playing some sort of joke on him? He remembered the way her expression had been somber, and he’d slowly realized that Maziel wasn’t going to start laughing.

Their father, brought into this world by evil, believed he was a creature cursed - sometimes he worried the curse afflicted all of those that had his blood. Was that what this was? His father’s curse? Zevulun's damnation for choosing to root himself in the Prairie despite all the years he had been warned against coming here?

No… this was no family curse. This was what it always was, the consequences of his actions. Of being the little boy so desperate to cling to love and understanding that he put blinders on to what trouble it would later bring.

“I think… I think I try to be good, but in the end, I’m always too damn selfish…” He trailed off with a sigh, feeling like he was going on the wrong tangent instead of saying what he needed to say. “It’s you who should be free of me, Daire. You who are the one that shouldn't be stained by the likes of me. Riesling saw what a poison I am to love; you have already suffered so much in this life, you shouldn't have to also suffer what it is to have my affection.” His throat tightened as though his own body rebelled against letting him say it, but Zevulun still managed, “I can find you somewhere safe to go, to be away from me, it's the least I could do.”