Descent (44 page)

He didn’t know if he was the kind of man who had a heart big enough to love a woman the way she deserved, without fault or fear, without withholding or hiding, only generously, boldly.

Therefore he could not allow himself to get too attached to anyone in case he was not the bright, shining thing they all expected. In case he made a mistake, and someone got hurt.

Could he not have one single part of himself that was free to do as he chose? He could be the person they wanted him to be, if only they would leave him this small thing. Allow him, in just this one part, not to be enough.

And so it had gone for the first twenty years of his life. They’d allowed him to wander and dream and adventure all on his own. It had seemed to work. He’d been happy.

Until the day he’d come across a girl—not so different from the million he’d met—lying halfway up a cliff, and he’d had his whole world smashed by the simple act of her opening her big brown eyes and meeting his gaze.

All his fears came true. He hurt her, time and time again. Because he was not a good enough man.

Sitting in that room so white it hurt his eyes, in such close proximity to her, his heart beat fearfully like it did every time he looked at her, even now, all this time later.

Fern rose slowly to his feet.

He was trapped within his own mind, and the only possible way out was to face his fears. And something
finally occurred to him, so obvious it may as well have been a slap in the face.

Jane saw him stand and, frowning, did the same.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked. But they weren’t the words he was hearing.

Stop hurting me now and just be with me.

Stop telling me you love me and love me!

The answer was staring at him. Gently he took her hands.

‘Fern?’

With the weight of every insecurity he had about himself, Prince Fern sank to one knee, and he looked up at her startled expression, feeling the warmth from his heart spread through his whole body. The brightness of the room seemed to dim against his eyes, making it easier to bear.

‘Jane,’ he said clearly. ‘We’ve come a very long way. Loved each other a very long time. The one honesty in my heart is that you are my only true weakness. The deepest fear inside me is that I won’t be able to protect you forever, and that I’ll never be good enough to be the kind of man that doesn’t hurt you. I’ve always resisted love because it’s what everyone wants from me. It’s the only thing I could withhold from them, and I thought ... I thought I’d be losing myself if I gave in.’

Fern closed his eyes, shaking his head.

‘I’ve been so foolish, Jane,’ he whispered. ‘I never realised that loving someone, truly loving someone makes it easier to know yourself, to find yourself. To be ... better.’

Jane felt light-headed. Her heart wasn’t slowing down.

‘So I’m taking my future in my hands—I’m deciding my own destiny,’ Fern went on, his voice growing steadier. ‘I’m going to try not to be so scared, even if I’ve
ruined things too much for you to be able to say yes. It doesn’t matter what your answer is—I think we’ll be set free either way, because the only thing that matters is that we’re deciding for ourselves, deciding not to be frightened. I’m offering you something, giving you an oath, because you make me a better man. Even if you don’t accept it ... well, I’ll love you anyway, Jane. The only thing left now is for you to decide your own fate.’

Jane couldn’t breathe properly. The change was too sudden, from the man who was always shying away from her, always running, to this.

He smiled now, gently, because he was Fern, and he would always be smiling. ‘Will you marry me, Jane, and help me, every day, to be worthy of you?’ The words spilled from him as if from the mouth of a man who had been deeply hungry all his life. As if, only now, he was finding the one thing that could sustain him and keep him alive, and put a desperate halt to his depravity.

Jane froze. There was a moment, a beat that her heart skipped, and within that fraction of a second two paths stretched out before her, both as frightening as the other.

His eyes seemed more grey and more familiar now than they ever had before.

And as she answered, her voice shaking, unable to believe what was coming out of her mouth, the nightmare crumbled down around them, shattering into a thousand tiny pieces on the floor, and the two of them woke at exactly the same time into a new world.

On the roof, those fighting reached the very last reserves of their strength, each one of them wounded and weary and losing hope.

But in the sky, as their hearts urged them forward, there came a change. Suddenly the two moons, Lindel
and Jael, one blue, one red, came into view, lighting up the world as only they could with a joyous purple glow.

And all at once there were no longer any shadows in the sky, no longer anything blocking the moons in the open, naked darkness of that night.

A great cry went up from the people on top of the palace, a cheer of triumph and joy and relief, because finally they knew that they might sleep in peace.

Here ends Book Two of The Strangers of Paragor Series.

Charlotte McConaghy began writing
Arrival,
the first book in ‘The Strangers of Paragor’ series, when she was fourteen. She set out to write the sort of book she wanted to read—an exciting, romantic, epic adventure.

Visit Charlotte at:
www.charlottemcconaghy.bounce.com.au/