“I don’t mean to be rude, but I think that you pushing your feelings onto me and calling them love also played a big part. You were too quick in telling me you loved me, especially since you knew nothing about love or me in the first place.
“You just loved the image you had of me and I knew it was nothing but a lie. Kamila and I, instead, took our relationship seriously and we almost broke up right off the bat because of Berion.
“We opened to each other slowly, accepting our respective flaws while trying not to drown the other with our own shit. With her ugly past, her twisted family, and her poor sister, I could truly relate to her.
“Not seeing each other for days, sometimes weeks at a time, allowed me to understand how much I appreciated the moments we spent together, separating my feelings for her from the egotistical desire of not wanting to be alone.
“I realized to have truly changed only when I found out that I cared for her even when parted from Solus. I’m still paranoid, cynical, and bitter, but I’m no longer poisonous.
“I’m scared to death of how Kamila will react when she learns about Solus and that’s why I never told her that I love her. Because if I do and then she leaves me, I don’t know if I would be able to take such a blow.” Lith said.
“Wait, how the heck do you do that? What do you say when Kamila tells you that she loves you?” Phloria was deeply moved by how much thought he had put in their past relationship ad flabbergasted by the revelation.
“She never did, so I never had to say anything.” Lith shrugged.
“After over two years? Are you kidding me?” Phloria’s genuine surprise irked Lith to no end.
“Just like you, she understood I had many secrets and she had a few of her own. She’s probably just waiting to have a clear picture before throwing the L-word.” Lith said.
“I’m sorry, but you introduced her to your family, you helped her sister, lived together, and now Kamila knows everything about you but Solus. What the heck is she still waiting for? I agree that love takes time to grow, but this is too long.” Phloria didn’t like her own words.
They made her sound as if she was trying to undermine Lith’s relationship and expected them to break up any moment. Yet she had to say those things because she believed them and she cared for him.
“She’s just afraid.” Solus said, making the other two turn toward her. “Phloria, Kallion has deeply hurt you, but he’s the only one. Kamila had several Kallions in her life. People she believed she could love and yet tossed her away like garbage.
“Her family crushed her trust in bonds and those men that she had in people. Kamila is scared by everything the word love implies because it only brought pain to her.”
“How do you know?” It was the first time Lith heard about such things.
He had never asked about Kamila’s past relationships because he thought they were meaningless to her, yet now he had learned that the reason she didn’t mention them was that her scars ran deep.
“I just watched her and listened to her words when I was there during your dates. That and while you were being cleansed from Huryole’s energy, Kamila told Tista about her ex-boyfriends. Mostly they were horror stories.” Solus replied.
“Then you better go back to her fast. Just remember that I’m no one’s second choice and neither should be Solus.” Phloria said while looking him straight in the eyes.
Solus warped the tower near the closest City Gate, allowing Lith to get back to the Flying Griffon resort around six in the morning thanks to the time zone difference.
“Kami, I’m back.” Lith woke her up by gently caressing her face.
“Lith? What time is it?” She mumbled with a drowsy voice.
“Six twenty? Damn, I thought it was later. Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up so early. Get back to sleep.” Lith was still cursing the time difference when Kamila sat up, throwing her arms around his neck.
She gave him a long, soft, and sweet kiss that words could only describe as perfect.
“Silly, I wanted you to wake me up. I’ve been worried all the time, to the point that I was dreaming about you being engaged in a mortal fight with some mage.” Her perky breasts pressed against his chest, causing an adrenaline rush that countered the exhaustion he felt.
“How can you possibly be so gorgeous after staying up almost for an entire day and why does every time I see you naked feel like the first?” Lith said while Kamila dragged him under the bedsheets, softly caressing his hair.
“Beats me, oh powerful Archmage.” She giggled. “You look like crap, instead. What the heck did you do until now?”
“Believe it or not, I slept for over eight hours. Breakthroughs at my level are like giving birth to a damn cactus.” Lith closed his eyes, losing himself in her caresses and the warmth of her bare skin.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” She chuckled.
“Definitely a boy. It was too much of a dick to be a girl.”
“Well, since I’m up, you could tell me everything that has happened since you left. Before that, would you like to take a shower, have an early breakfast, or…” His snoring cut her short.
Between all the accumulated fatigue and the stress from confronting Phloria, Lith needed sheer willpower just to stay conscious. Kamila’s gentle touch had crushed his defenses and allowed him to fully relax.
“Or me.” Kamila finished the phrase a second too late. “This is nothing like the romantic reunion I had pictured. You’re a killjoy, Lith Verhen.”
She kissed his head, and when even that didn’t cause any paranoid reaction, Kamila knew he was really fast asleep.
“With all your secrets and silences, you make it unbelievably hard to love you, but I love you anyway.”
***
While Lith spent the rest of Kamila’s vacation at the Flying Griffon resort, the Kingdom was in quite a turmoil. An army strong of one thousand men had disappeared overnight with no plausible explanation.
The few survivors all reported the same thing. The battalion led by Captain Lotta had let the undead inside the camp and then attempted to slaughter everyone before the arrival of a group of mysterious mages.
“Dammit.” Jirni snarled.
She was sitting in the family tea room in the Ernas Mansion with all of her children, Orion, and Wyra, Friya’s second in command. The Ernas sisters and their brothers had returned home with conventional means after devising a plausible cover story.
Jirni didn’t believe a word of it, but being them alive by the miracle she knew as Lith, she didn’t pry further. The how he did it paled in comparison to the result of bringing her daughters safe and sound back home.
“Are you certain that Kallion was there and that he said that Archmage Deirus was directly involved in the coup?” Jirni asked Wyra.
“Yes.”
“Is there anyone alive who heard him say that that might testify?”
“I’m sorry, no. Captain Kortus is dead and so is Kallion. You could ask Lotta or Ormann, but if they faced Archmage Deirus, I doubt they survived.” Wyra shook her head.
