To fucking think.
I close my eyes, speaking past the noose threatening to strangle me. “This hurts, Raeve …”
“I don’t want that,” she rasps, and her arms tighten their grip on mine, like a clenching comfort that fails to soothe the burn. “I wanted—”
“I know what you wanted. But I find no joy in pretending to have something we don’t.”
“I can’t do anything but pretend …”
“Because you lost someone?”
She stiffens in my arms.
This time, I’m the one to tighten my hold, tempted to squeeze her until our bodies fuse.
After a long pause, she finally whispers, almost too soft for me to hear, “Yes.”
My heart splits, the knowledge of her devastating past sitting in my chest like a lump of lead. A cruel, burdening weight I loathe to pile atop whatever grief she’s already carrying before she slips through my fingers again.
But a necessary cruelty.
She needs to be able to make a justified decision about her future based on the facts of reality. Not this smokescreen she’s living behind.
I thought I’d have more time to pick the right moment. Wait for her to grow curious and seek the answers out since the moon reveal went so fucking poorly.
Now I see the truth.
She senses the weight of her past, or she wouldn’t be resorting to such extreme measures. She’s poisoning her curiosity, refusing to let it sprout.
Meaning she’d rather be alone for eternity. Alone, and happily na?ve.
Unfortunately for her, I have a responsibility I refuse to cower from.
“I envy the dragons, Kaan. They worship death so beautifully. We just … lose. Left with nothing but ghosts and memories that feel like wounds.”
The throaty husk of her voice forces me to keep my eyes closed. Raeve doesn’t break when she’s being watched. She stuffs it all down, pretends it’s not there. And right now … she’s not pretending.
At all.
“Have you ever wished the dead could come back? Even for a fleeting moment so you could feel them in your arms? Tell them how much they meant to you?”
“Yes.”
For a hundred phases, I looked upon Slátra’s moon and wished for her to bring Elluin back to me. Begged the Creators, too.
Just another dimpled smile.
Another touch.
Another kiss upon my lids.
Anything.
She releases a shuddered breath. “I’m not back—not really. Much as I’d like to be … that.”
Her.
Elluin.
Weaving her fingers through mine, she lifts my hand.
I open my eyes. Watch her use our fingers to sketch the shape of the rounded graveyard hanging above us, tracing the slope of the Moonplume’s wings.
“This moment is a gift we either waste or treasure, but I’m thankful for it either way. For the time I’ve spent here. I’ve finally learned what it means to live, and I’ll never forget that, Kaan.”
Every cell in my body stills as she pulls my hand down again, coaxes it into a cup, and nuzzles her face against it. Just like she’s done so many times before …
“Never.”
My composure snaps.
I rip off my mask and tip her, catching the side of her face, dragging my thumb across her lips. Her breath stills—her eyes wide and glazed, cheeks wet with tears.
There’s such bold shock in her stare that I feel like I’m seeing the real her for the first time since she fell back into the world. Not just Elluin. Not just Raeve.
A beautiful, devastating blend of both.
A pained groan grates up my throat, and I take her mouth in a crushing kiss, tasting tears on her lips as I finally jump off the cliff she sang me to the edge of.
The stone is happy here, like Kaan asked Bulder’s permission before he hollowed out the cliff to make our space. As if Bulder gladly yielded.
I love it. Being here … it feels like a small home away from home.
Each slumber, we feast together before Kaan plays for me, and I sing to him of The Shade. Of the wind, water, ground, and flames.
Of my beautiful fallen family.
Then he makes love to me on our large pallet carved by his own hands until we fall asleep in each other’s arms.
We’re in a bubble. I know we are. The rest of the world doesn’t matter here within our special place.
It can’t touch us here.
Last slumber, Kaan got on his knees, took his necklace off, and offered it to me. He called it his málmr and told me he went all the way to Gondragh to collect the scale of Ahra—the Great Silver Sabersythe—in order to craft the pale half. He said Ahra had come to him in a dream, and he’d gotten the distinct message that if he couldn’t secure a scale from her shed, he was undeserving of the love we shared. That he would not have the strength to face our biggest challenges that have not yet come to pass.