Rebecca Ross

“Then should I call on another Skyward god? Perhaps Shale?”

Warin fell quiet, but his gaze burned through mine. He despised the god of wind and how my father favored Shale over all other divines at court. How Shale had always been fond of me, the first Skyward I had ever trusted.

Roman stood in the sunshine and read every word of her article. He forgot where he was, where he was standing. Where he was going. Where he had just come from. He forgot everything when he read her words, and a smile crept over his face when he reached the end.
Damn, he was proud of her.

Let me guess: he’s pouring his heart out onto the page, claiming how inadequate he feels because what he truly craves is affirmation from you. And he probably threw something in there about his family: a mum or his sister or his nan. Because he knows you’ll melt at the thought of the other women in his life, the ones who have shaped him. And if he knows you well enough … then he’ll mention something about books or newspaper articles, because surely by now he knows your writing is exquisite, and above all he knows that he doesn’t deserve you and your words and he never will.

She and Roman would survive this war. They would have the chance to grow old together, year by year. They would be friends until they both finally acknowledged the truth. And they would have everything that other couples had—the arguments and the hand-holding in the market and the gradual exploration of their bodies and the birthday celebrations and the journeys to new cities and the living as one and sharing a bed and the gradual sense of melting into each other. Their names would be entwined—Roman and Iris or Winnow and Kitt because could you truly have one without the other?—and they would write on their typewriters and ruthlessly edit each other’s pieces and read books by candlelight at night.
She wanted him. Leaving him behind in the trenches wasn’t even a possibility.

Why did you take the wounds that should have been mine?

“The C is for Carver,” Roman said, leaning closer to her. “My name is Roman Carver Kitt.”
He wove his fingers into her hair and brought his mouth down to hers.

“Marry me, Iris Elizabeth Winnow,” Roman whispered, drawing back to look at her. “I want to spend all my days and all my nights with you. Marry me.”

“I’m telling you that Roman Carver Kitt is in the garden, waiting to marry you.”

She rose on her toes and framed his face. She wiped his tears, and he let them fall until he could see her again, vividly.
And he thought, What have you done to me?

“We’ll get through this. Breathe, Iris. I’m here and we’ll get through this. Breathe.”