E la’Dar was no longer burning, the wounds that I had left behind now replaced with scars. The air stank of tears and death. The grief lingered
like fog, thick with every breath. And interwoven with that grief was anger. Few noticed me as I returned to the castle, wound through the hallways,
and went to the uppermost floor. I found Caduan in his chambers. He stood on the balcony, looking down over the city. His room was a mess. Papers and maps and bloodied clothing were strewn over every surface. Spilled bottles of ink ruined books and records. The bed was untouched.
Caduan did not move as I approached him—did not so much as turn. “We leave in the morning. Ten thousand soldiers. Everyone. Everything we have. Every warrior, every Wielder, every shade. You told me to stop being cowardly, so I am.”
He spoke so calmly, but it was the sort of calm that balanced on the razor’s edge of sanity, promising collapse.
“Look,” he said, still not turning from the view. I did.
When I had walked through the streets of Ela’Dar, the violence had invaded my lungs like fog. But from up here, you could see it in the streets
—see the humming energy in each crevice of the city. Every person was moving. The sun glistened against metal blades, small as stars. It was a city on the precipice of change, the desire for it swelling like a roiling wave.
“It is for you,” Caduan said. He spoke so calmly. Still, he would not look at me. “It is all for you. I never said that. But I found myself regretting that I never told you. When I thought you wouldn’t come back.”
Why didn’t you fight for me? I had asked my mother.
I watched his profile, strong and sharp, looking over the city. With a gentle touch, I turned it towards me.
He looked so different even than he had when I left. Darkness sank into every hollow of his face. I now noticed little black veins around his eyes, so faint that they could be mistaken for shadow, visible only because of the fragile pale of his skin.
Still—he was beautiful. My gaze caressed every dip and plane of his features, traversing from his tight brow to his nose, following the curve of his lips.
And the way he looked at me…
He murmured, barely louder than a whisper, “Let me touch you.” A plea.
I nodded.
His hand rose to mine, which still cupped his cheek, and he covered it with his own. His thumb traced each muscle, so gently that goosebumps rose over my arm—tracing one delicate string of bones, and then the next, and then the next.
It was so soft, as if he was afraid that he might break me, that all the breath left my lungs when some thread of restraint snapped, and he pulled me into a desperate embrace. Like he couldn’t stop himself. Like he couldn’t believe I was real.
I wrapped my arms around him and welcomed it. I didn’t know how much it was possible to miss someone.
I pressed my lips to his throat, his jaw, his cheek. He tilted my face towards him and captured my mouth in a kiss, his tongue meeting mine, every part of me melting against him.
This was what I had so wanted when I was pushed into another body, and another, and another. My flesh was my own, but I felt more connected to a separate soul now than I ever had as Reshaye—and yet, so far apart.
Pulling away from him was a struggle. Every impulse within me screamed against it. But I did it anyway, stepping back just enough to look at him. I pushed him back through the door, back into his chambers, and then my hands were at his shirt, fingers working at his buttons.
His hand went to my wrist quickly, as if to stop me on instinct alone. I gave him a long stare, and he released it.
I unbuttoned his shirt and let it fall open, revealing the expanse of his body. Shadows painted rivers and valleys over the muscles of his torso. The
darkness drowned out all of it. Had I forgotten how bad it was, or had it gotten worse since I had left? Now the thinnest capillaries extended all the way to his shoulders, his hips, his sides, so that few parts of his body were left untouched.
I touched the marks and resisted the urge to pull away. They made my own fingertips burn—like they were coming into contact with something noxious, a thousand worlds beneath this one. Something that my own magic recoiled from, and yet… also called to.
I realized what that sensation was. It felt like death. “How much time?” I asked.
“Enough to right a millennium of wrongs.” No. It was not enough.
I looked up at him and the force of his stare nearly sent me staggering— so intense that it hit me like a strike. There was so much fury in his eyes, burning bright as fire, even as the rest of his face remained perfectly still.
I felt foolish.
How had I not seen this earlier in him? How had I not felt it? I always had thought that Caduan was so much calmer than me. He wasn’t. He was just as angry. He had lost just as much.
Now, that fury mingled with desire. His knuckles stroked my cheek. “Stay with me,” he whispered.
Don’t leave me, I had begged of him.
He wanted me to stay, but he would abandon me.
“I won’t force you,” he murmured. “But I ask you. Please. I want… I want to fill my last days with you. I have spent my entire life chasing knowledge, but now the only thing that I want to know is you. Every part of you. I want you to be the last thing I see when death comes for me. And I want you beside me when we build this new world.”
I was reminded of the way Caduan spoke during the feast—the way he read the names of the dead with such solemn weight, such reverence. He spoke that way now. Like his love for me was something sacred.
And now, I knew, would be the time. I could ask him for restraint—I could plead for mercy on the humans’ behalf, on behalf of my mixed blood, on behalf of the connection I had once shared with Maxantarius and Tisaanah and a thousand other souls.
I knew, in this moment, that he would listen to me.
But the injustice of this world seethed inside of me like a cluster of broken glass. We were surrounded by a city of people who were angry and grieving. I was angry and grieving. I wanted to right the wrongs. I wanted vengeance.
And above all, I wanted him.
I could defeat death. I could save him. I refused to lose anything else, least of all something as precious as him. He had brought me back against all impossibilities. I did not care what it meant for the humans. I did not even care what it meant for the Fey.
This, I realized, was love. Love was worth destroying for. “Yes. I will stay,” I said, and kissed him deeply.
How easily magic came to me. The vines wound around us both, encircling our intertwined bodies. Their leaves were red and violet, splashes of human and Fey blood that quickly withered into blackened husks. And yet, they pulled us into such a comforting embrace, the three of us—me, Caduan, and death.
