3rd Annual No Kiss Blogfest! Scene from Kristin Cashore's FIRE

Today, Frankie's hosting the The 3rd Annual No Kiss Blogfest over at her personal blog, Frankie Writes. Why? We're honoring the almost kiss --- the swooniest, most torturous scenes in literature!

Earlier today, Sara posted an awesome no-kiss scene she wrote for the blogfest, and here's my contribution of one of my favorite no-kiss scenes, from Kristin Cashore's oh-so-intense-and-incredible FIRE.

The need-to-know details:

Fire is a Monster, the last of her kind -- she is a girl whose beauty is impossibly irresistible and who can communicate with and control the minds of everyone around her -- a dangerous skill, one that makes her the target of many. She's using her ability for good, though, to assist King Nash and Prince Brigan in a war against rebel armies.

Brigan mistrusts her entirely at first, but they eventually become friends, and then they fall in love -- but war doesn't leave time for romance, and all too often, Brigan has to go into battle.

Here, Brigan is trying to see a grieving and seriously-injured Fire before he leaves, but she can't bear to see him. Normally, Fire is heroically brave and in control, a force to be reckoned with, so to witness her at her most vulnerable makes it a powerful scene.

There was a noise in the doorway and a man's harsh voice. "Commander, we're ready."

"I'm coming," Brigan said over his shoulder. "Wait for me outside."

The man left.

Go, Fire thought to Brigan. Don't keep them waiting.

I will not leave you like this, he thought.

I won't look at you, she thought, pressing at the wall clumsily with her bandaged hands. I don't want to see your new battle scars.

He came to her in the corner, the stubborn, steady feeling of him unchanged. He touched his hand to her right shoulder and bent his face to her left ear, his stubble rough and his face cold against hers and the feel of him achingly familiar, and suddenly she was leaning back against him, her arms awkwardly embracing his left arm, stiff with leathered armor, and pulling it around her.

"You're the one with new scars," he said very quietly, so that only she could hear.

"Don't go," she said. "Please don't go."

"I desperately want not to go. But you know that I must."

"I don't want to love you if you're only going to die," she cried, burying her face in his arm. "I don't love you."

"Fire," he said, "Will you do something for me? Will you send me word on the northern front, so I know how you're faring?"

"I don't love you."

"Does that mean you won't send word?"

"No," she said confusedly. "Yes. I'll send word. But--"

"Fire," he said gently, beginning to untangle himself from her. "You must feel what you feel. I--"

Another voice, sharp with impatience, interrupted from the doorway. "Commander! The horses are standing."

Brigan spun around to face the man, swearing with as much exasperation and fury as Fire had ever heard anyone swear. The man scuttled away in alarm.

"I love you," Brigan said very calmly to Fire's back. "I hope in the coming days it may comfort you to know that. And all I ask of you is that you try to eat, Fire, and sleep, no matter how you feel. Eat and sleep. And send me word, so I know how you are. Tell me if there's anyone, or anything, I can send to you."

Go safely. Go safely, she thought to him as he left the building and his convoy pounded through the gates.

The intensity gets me every time, just picturing him holding her from behind, their hurried confessions of love before he has to go back into battle, when everything's falling apart. Awesome!