❛ There are no happy endings, because nothing ends. ❜
Safie stilled at the sound of his voice. Her eyes registered the brightness emanating from the Summer King, the searing heat of him causing her skin to redden so quickly and too soon. The urge to look away, to shield herself from the pain did not override the longing just to stay one moment longer in his presence. What would she give to close the space between them? What had she left? Mattaeus’ words sounded both promise and threat, for her misery, and though the snow at her feet was rapidly melting and the flakes falling around them evaporated into mist, she wished to hear his curses upon her again.
“ There are no happy endings, because nothing ends. ”
“Then is there to be no happiness, Kingling? An eternity of unhappiness, without end.” She stood taller, back a rigid line of insolence against him and his court. To wish this for her, upon her-- how he must want for her to become a shade, more one than she already was to him. How she wished for it herself.
But she would not, something held her affixed to this world. The Winter Regent came into her view beyond Mattaeus’ shoulder. Safie’s eyes filled with a cruelty she had come to know intimately-- as intimately as the wicked chill of her regent. “No, I suppose it will never end for you.” Her own promise. Her own threat. She avoided touching him as she moved past, drifting away from his sun drenched gaze.