Chapter 59: He Was Building (Her POV)
Later, I caught myself in the bathroom mirror. Asha. I kept walking. The bed dipped under my weight. I sighed, settling beside him, shower-damp and swallowed in one of his shirts. My hair dripped onto the pillow. Malvor glanced at the wet spot spreading across it. He said nothing. He just turned his head and looked at me in the dim light. We didn't speak at first.
His voice came low, almost a whisper. "I know you would never hurt me."
I flinched. His face immediately twisted. "That's not, fuck. I said that wrong."
I waited. "I mean…" He rubbed a hand over his face. "You don't have to protect me from the ugly parts, Asha. I'm not scared of you."
I didn't say it back. I loved him. Gods, I loved him. But some part of me was always waiting to see what that love would cost. He didn't scold me. Didn't ask me to promise anything. He just held my hand and I let him.
I don't remember falling asleep. One moment I was staring at his hand covering mine, the next, darkness. The deepest sleep I'd let myself slip into in weeks. No dreams at first.
A sharp breath. My leg jerked beneath the sheets. Fabric tangled around my knees. Someone screamed. Me. Them. I couldn't tell. Darkness. A hand closing around my arm. Voices overlapping until words became noise. I came awake fighting the sheets.
Malvor was already there. "Asha."
His palm hovered over my chest. He didn't touch me until I nodded. Then his hand settled over my heart.
"Here," he murmured. My breath came too fast. "You're here." Eventually, my lungs believed him. I fell asleep again with his hand still there. When I woke hours later, he was gone.
I sat up slowly, disoriented by the luxury of rest. The shirt I wore still smelled like him. I heard it, the hiss and hum of espresso brewing. Beneath it, someone humming a tune that definitely wasn't real, but sounded aggressively proud of itself. I padded into the kitchen and stopped. On the counter sat a steaming cup of mocha. My mocha. Sweet, chocolatey, cream swirled just right. And floating in the foam? His face. Smirking. Smug. Cartoonish. He turned on cue, flour-dusted, why flour? and wearing an apron that read: Chaos, but make it caffeinated.
"Good morning, sunshine," he said, far too pleased with himself. "I made you coffee. And a portrait. Selfless act, really, considering how long I stared at myself to get it right."
I blinked. "You… made latte art. Of your own face."
"I'm an artist, Asha. I suffer for my craft."
I picked up the cup, took a sip. "You're ridiculous."
"And yet—" he pointed at the cup, "—you're drinking me. That's love."
I snorted. He grinned. I took another sip. "I dream that people are screaming in my head."
His grin disappeared. He didn't laugh. Didn't interrupt. Just leaned back against the counter, waiting.
"The other gods. Some of them are angry. Some are just… loud. Their voices, their power, it leaks into everything. I can't always tell which thoughts are mine anymore." My thumb rubbed the chip in my mug. "I am at my weakest at night. The barrier around the bonds gets weaker too." I stared into Malvor's stupid face floating in my coffee. "Sometimes I wake up and I don't know if I'm still me. Or if I've just become a collection of pieces they left behind."
Malvor's stepped closer, slow, deliberate, and took the mug from my hands. He didn't touch me. "I've been in your mind," he said softly. "Even then, I don't think I've seen all of it. But I know this—" his voice didn't waver. "You're still in there. I see you, not them."
My throat tightened. "You always sound so sure," I whispered.
"That's because I am."
"How?"
He blinked.
"How can you be sure when I'm not?"
"Oh." He ran a hand through his hair. "Gods, I'm probably going to say this wrong."
"Probably."
He gave me an injured look. "Your faith in me is inspiring."
"You made your own face out of milk."
"And did it beautifully."
I waited. He sighed. "This would be easier if I could just seduce you into forgetting the world again."
"Malvor."
"I know. Terrible plan. Apparently we're growing." Something in my chest loosened. Just a little. He looked at me. "I don't know all of who you are, Asha." I stilled. "I thought I did. I was wrong." That hurt less than it should have. "But I know some things."
He tugged lightly at the hem of the shirt I'd stolen. "You steal my clothes." I looked down. "You make coffee that should legally qualify as dessert. You think you're subtle when you're amused by me. You're not."
"I am."
"You're really not."
My mouth twitched.
"You choose gentleness when nobody would blame you for choosing otherwise. You make my chaos feel like home." He hesitated. "And apparently you tell me when people are screaming inside your head now."
I looked at him.
"That's new."
"Yeah."
"I like new."
My lip trembled.
"Only with you," he said, pressing a kiss to my forehead. "The rest of the Pantheon can choke. I know who you are, Asha. I just didn't know how much it cost you to be her." His lips lingered there for a moment. "For what it's worth, I like meeting you."
My eyes burned. "Even this part?"
"Especially this part."
My fingers curled around his wrist. He looked down at them.
"I want you to feel it."
He blinked at me. "Feel what, love?"
I opened the bond. All of it. For the first time since Domerik attacked me. Malvor staggered. I almost closed it. Didn't. Love hit him first. His hand caught the counter. Then everything tangled through it. Grief. Fear. Anger. Guilt. Want. All the things I'd been cutting away from each other so I could survive them one at a time. I let him have all of it. I held the bond open a few seconds. Long enough to stop deciding what parts of me he could see.
Beneath it, I felt him. Malvor opened back. No glittering walls. No jokes. No careful little curtain pulled across the places he kept hidden. I felt laughter in his memory, bright and startling. The warmth that moved through him every time I walked into a room. My stolen shirts. My coffee beside his. The empty space in his bed when I wasn't there. Beneath it all, something so simple it hurt. Stay.
I gasped and pulled back. The bond flickered between us. "I can't hold it long." I whispered. Malvor was staring at me. "But I wanted you to know."
He didn't speak. He opened his arms. I went. It was nice to be held.
"So, Master of Mischief…" I murmured, a smirk tugging at my lips, "what do you dream?"
He huffed out a laugh, automatic, a little unsteady. But the bond was still faintly open. I felt his answer before he gave it. "I dream of things I'm not supposed to want."
My fingers stilled. "Like what?"
His voice dropped. "I dream of a house that doesn't vanish when I turn my back. Someone laughing in my kitchen. Someone staying." He looked away. "I dream of coffee in the morning and terrible jokes and knowing that when I go to sleep, you'll still be there."
Oh. Malvor wanted ordinary.
"I dream of being enough," he whispered. "Not worshiped. Not feared. Just… loved. For who I am." His mouth twitched. "Even when I'm an idiot. Especially then."
I leaned in and kissed his jaw. "You're more than enough." I kissed him again. "Even when you're a complete idiot."
"There she is," he murmured. I smiled against his skin.
He smiled into my hair, his arms tightening around me. Deep in the bond, I felt it. He'd been dreaming of me far longer than he realized.
Then his voice softened. "Alright, My Always. What do you dream about when the screaming stops?"
I didn't answer right away. "Quiet."
He blinked. "Quiet?"
"Peace."
His expression grew suspicious. "Those are both deeply offensive answers."
I smiled against his chest. "You asked."
"I did. I'm regretting it."
I closed my eyes. "Not silence," I said after a moment. "I don't think I want silence." He waited. "I want mornings like this. Coffee. A book. Nowhere I'm required to be. No one needing anything from me." My fingers traced absently over his wrist. "I want to wake up and know the thoughts in my head are mine." The joke left his face. "I want days that don't matter."
His brow furrowed.
"Not like that." I searched for the words. "Days no one writes down. Nothing terrible happens. Nothing important happens either. We drink coffee. You bother me while I'm trying to read."
"I would never."
I looked at him.
"I would frequently."
My mouth curved. "Maybe we ride Karma. Maybe we don't."
"And then?"
"Then you come back."
He went quiet. I hadn't meant for those words to land differently. But they did. "And we have dinner," I continued softly. "You tell me whatever ridiculous thing you've been thinking about all day. I pretend I'm annoyed."
"Pretend?"
"Mostly."
"Devastating."
I rested my cheek against his chest. "And then we do it again."
His fingers moved slowly through my hair. "That's what you dream about?"
"Yes."
"Just checking."
I laughed quietly. He kissed the top of my head. "I think I can give you boring."
I tilted my head back. "You?"
His mouth opened. Closed. "I can give you brief periods adjacent to boring."
"That's probably the best I'm getting."
"Almost certainly." I settled against him again. Peace. It sounded so small compared to everything the gods had wanted for me. Maybe that was why I wanted it. Not a life without Malvor's chaos. Just one where chaos was something I could laugh at. Something that left flour on my kitchen counter and ridiculous faces in my coffee. Not something I had to survive.