The Girl with the Fire Heart
Chapter 14

He concludes his speech. He forces his eyes to stay locked on hers. He doesn't know how long they sit this way, but at some point, she lets her tears fall. Then, before he knows it, she's leaning forward, tugging her hands free, and wrapping them around his neck in an embrace. Stunned, he sits frozen. Slowly, he lifts his arms from his lap and wraps them around her waist, tugging her as close as he can without dragging her into his lap.

She sobs silently into his shirt. She can still make out his musky scent, the sweat clinging to him from their earlier training. No one has ever said such words that were first proved by actions. No one has ever made it quite so clear that she was what they wanted. He didn't want just want her element, he wanted her, simply her.

Finally she releases him. She gently places her hands on his cheeks, looking at him with all the admiration that's coursing through her veins. She wants to say something, anything that is as profound as what he said.

“When you walk into a room, you try to blend into the background so that people don’t immediately notice you. You say it’s because you’re tall but in truth, it’s because of your element. You hate when your mother calls you dear, mostly because it makes you feel like a young child about to be chastised. You love going to the bakery first thing in the morning because it means you get your first pick of bread. You enjoy working in the fields with me because it means you get to learn things you never would have anywhere else. You’re bashful when my father comments on your strength and how easy some things come for you because a compliment from an authority figure is unheard of on your side of life. You love your horse, but because he’s old, you only ride him when absolutely necessary. While you may have hated the elaborate birthday, I didn’t because it gave me the chance to know you in a way that I might not have if we had not rushed into this very garden to get away from all the stares of the village girls and some of their eager parents. But the one thing I am even more grateful for about that night is that it gave me a chance to realize just how easy it is to fall in love with someone who’s only goal is to truly and completely know you. So I am falling in love with you too, because you gave me a reason to fall in love again.”

There is nothing more to be said. They have said everything they have been feeling for months, weeks, maybe even years. Without wasting another second, Damon leans in to her. The desire to do kiss her slams into him with such ferocity, he almost jerks away from her from the sheer force of it. Instead, he pulls back and lets her hands fall from his face, giving him the chance to cup her cheeks, angling her head for the best access to her and he start moving towards her.

He moves slowly, giving her ample time to see him coming, to understand his intent. But before his lips can touch hers, a voice clears behind him. Damon shuts his eyes, releasing the breath he didn’t know he'd been holding. When he opens them again, he sees Valentina's face is flush with heat. He isn't too sure if it's from their almost kiss or if it's because they had been caught in the act. Damon chooses to believe the former, though he's sure it's the latter.

He releases her face and turns to look at the person standing behind him. He sees his father admiring a little too closely the section of gardenia’s his mother has planted. Damon clears his throat in response to his father’s interruption.

Joaquin looks over at the young couple, smiling knowingly before speaking.

“Have you come to an agreement?” Joaquin asks.

“She’ll accompany me to the ceremony. When do we leave?” Damon asks back.

“In a week’s time,” comes his father’s answer.

Damon nods, already thinking of all the preparations that he would need to rush through in the next week.

“And where will we be going?” Damon suddenly remembers to ask.

“The tanzanite kingdom,” Joaquin states.

Damon feels Valentina stiffen beside him. For a brief moment, he is confused. Then he remembers why she stiffens at the mention of the kingdom. Damon isn't sure that the boy with the tanzanite heart would even be at the ceremony, but something in him doesn't want to take that risk.

He rises from the bench and gestures for his father to step into the hallway that leads to the private garden. Joaquin looks questioningly at his son but says nothing and goes inside the house. Before Damon makes his way indoors, he places a chaste kiss on Valentina's forehead, a silent reassurance that he would handle the fallout if one came of this.

When Joaquin and his son are safely within the walls of their home, Damon quickly explains the discomfort displayed by Valentina without revealing too much of her past.

Joaquin is silent, processing what his son tells him. He knows that by sending Valentina to the tanzanite village, there is a great possibility of the girl rehashing old wounds. He doesn't want to risk the heart of someone he's begun to care a great deal about as if she were his own daughter.

But the consequences of his son not attending the celebration can have serious backlash and he won't risk his son either. He looks at his son, seeing the apprehension in his face, wanting to take away the discomfort at putting the girl in an uncomfortable position. He needs time to think about all of this.

Time that he will not get. Valentina, still sitting in the garden, grapples with the fact that she agreed to attend the blessing ceremony of some child with a tanzanite heart, or the possibility of having a tanzanite heart anyway. She doesn't want to believe that it was her boy- former boy- with the tanzanite heart that had a child and who was having a blessing ceremony.

She'd attended these ceremonies before. Nothing so ornate or elaborate as the one the tanzanite kingdom was surely hosting, but she knew some of the rudimentary customs that came with attending a ceremony like this. She already agreed. She did not want to see the young boy who had broken her heart, or rather had stolen her fire with his abandonment and secrets. But he isn't a young boy anymore. And she most certainly isn't a young girl.

She forces herself to stand, to squash the uneasiness creeping into her stomach, to force away the nerves of something going horribly wrong, of the possibility that it is his child that will be the object of everyone’s attention. She silently commands her legs to move towards the back door, to open it and step into the hallway where Joaquin and Damon both still stand in a silent stare off.

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