Chapter 39
“What is it?” Thorne held my gaze, concern shining in his dark eyes. “Are you suffering aftereffects from practicing the mirror shield?”
“No.” I pulled in a steadying breath.
Now that the moment was upon us, I nearly lost my courage. But he was returning to Elfhame, and I couldn’t let him go without speaking the truth of my feelings.
“Thorne…” I squeezed my eyes closed a moment, then opened them.
He regarded me so patiently that I nearly burst into tears. He had always been there, I realized—at my side to lend a steadying hand or a kind word, to save me from drowning or to banish poison from my blood.
I swallowed back my fear, then said the words emblazoned upon my heart.
“I love you.”
There. It was out in the open, like a tender bloom unfurling in the spring sun.
The f
