Yet I can’t help but recall the look on her face when she shared her Birth-blessing word with me. How broken she looked when she admitted what really happened to Aoki’s family. How, when we talked about the night of the Moon Ball and why she came back for me, Wren said she couldn’t let me go through it alone.
I know how it feels. They don’t tell you about that—how taking a life takes something from you, too.
Will she still look at me the same way, even now? After all the things that have been taken from me? That I’ve taken from myself?
“I doubt you’ve been out of her thoughts this whole time,” Kenzo says. “Maybe you forget, Lei, but I was there when Wren announced her love for you. I’ve never heard her speak like that before. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen her not in control. You were the only thing in the world that existed right then. The only thing she cared about.”
A few tears slip from my grasp. Kenzo reaches for my hand. His wolfish paw is large and heavy. It covers mine, and like the first time he touched me, instead of making me feel threatened, I feel safe. Protected.
How Wren’s love used to make me feel.
How it still does.
Because even if I am scared, and disappointed, and angry, and confused, it always comes back to that: our love. Like I told Blue, I might have seen Wren at her worst, but I’ve seen her at her best, too. I know her, and she knows me. I called her heartless in my rage and despair once, but it wasn’t fair. Not once has that been true. Wren has always had a heart.
She’s just been taught to ignore it.
Kenzo smiles, and I return it through tear-blurred eyes— At the same time an arrow whirrs past.
It embeds itself into the tree trunk inches above Kenzo’s head.
I’m on my feet in an instant, knife drawn. Blue jumps up, too. Grabbing the club she took from one of the guards back at the palace, she dashes to my side. The twins stir. With Aoki lying across his lap, Kenzo doesn’t get up, but he reaches for the staff propped behind him without shifting her, lupine eyes glinting as he stares into the darkness where the arrow came from.
“Wait here,” I tell him and Blue, already moving forward.
“Lei,” Kenzo warns.
“There might be others. Stay here and protect the girls.”
I creep away before either he or Blue can argue. I hear Zhen mumble, “What’s happening? Where’s Lei?”
In the predawn light, the maze of bamboo plays tricks on my eyes, casting shifting shadows that mimic figures slipping in and out of view. I whip around at each snap of a branch, only to find more shadows.
Then a scream rises from behind me.
In an instant I’m hurtling back the way I came. More screams join it, and it strikes me that they sound wrong. They’re high, almost giddy. As I get closer I make out voices and… is that laughter?
When I reach the clearing, I understand why the screams sound wrong. They aren’t the type of screams I’ve become accustomed to, sounds of pain and terror.
They are screams of happiness.
I stumble to a halt, my panting loud in the sudden hush as every face in the clearing turns my way. Time slows, the world stilling on its axis, tuning its attention to this small space and the few people within it. Even the gods must be holding their breaths to watch.
For me, the world shrinks even further—until it is just her. All her.
Only her.
Wren holds my astonished stare.
Nothing else exists apart from her eyes, that face, and my wildly beating heart, and my soul, shining so brightly that I wonder how I’m still standing—if I even am still standing—because all I am is breath and heartbeat and furious love burning so brightly it has scorched away everything else.
Wren opens her mouth. Nothing comes out.
Dimly, as if from far away, I hear Blue mutter disgustedly, “Look at them. It makes me sick.”
And as if some strange enchantment has broken, I launch myself forward, just as Wren does, and we crash into each other, me leaping into her, her muscled arms strapping around my back to hold me, so safe, so strong, so Wren, both of us laughing and crying and clinging to one another, chest to chest, soul to soul, locked together as if we might never let go.
TWENTY-SEVEN
WREN
IT’S HER.
It’s really her.
The words had been singing in Wren’s mind from the instant she’d caught sight of Lei in the forest, her sweet face blank with shock at first, yet every bit as beautiful as Wren remembered. Then something had given behind those golden eyes and a fierce kind of joy had burst across her features, until she was blazing. Radiant. Lei had jolted into Wren’s arms, and Wren finally got to hold the girl she’d been dreaming of for months, the girl she had thought of every waking moment, whose absence she felt with each heartbeat.
Lei’s hand was in hers. She was here, it was really her.
Everything about her was a marvel. Wren looked and looked, drinking her in. And Lei looked back, as if Wren was a marvel, too.
After the initial euphoria of their reunion, some of Wren’s anxiety at how Lei would receive her after the way they’d left things returned, but so far Lei was only shining eyes and glowing joy and wondrous disbelief—they were holding hands, she was holding Lei’s hand—and though Wren knew it couldn’t last, she basked in it. If only there was a way magic could affect time. She could live inside this moment forever.
“You didn’t need to shoot at us,” Blue grumbled.
Nitta shrugged. “Didn’t want you attacking us by accident thinking we were soldiers sneaking up on you.”
“Did you not think we’d have attacked you because you shot an arrow at our heads?” Blue returned waspishly.
Lova waved a hand. “Trivialities.”
They were making their way through the forest together, heading for the northwest border, where Merrin, Khuen, and Samira waited with the horses. Lei and Kenzo had explained about the diversion, but none of them wanted to take any chances, so they’d got moving right after their reunion, making introductions for those who hadn’t met. Wren had been relieved to see Kenzo with the girls, but it was tainted by the obvious cruelty he’d suffered during his imprisonment—and the half dead girl he carried in his arms.
Now, Kenzo walked carefully so as not to let the tiniest spur of torn bark or vegetation snag Aoki. Aoki’s small body was limp, her skin pallid. Wren caught the concern on Lei’s face, and she knew their blissful bubble had finally burst.
“I’ll take a look at her as soon as we’re at the camp,” she said, squeezing Lei’s hand. “I’ll do everything I can for her. And we have amazing doctors. She’ll be all right.”
Lei nodded. Her expression darkened. “Wren, you should know… Mistress Azami was killed.”
Though they kept walking, the loamy forest floor unchanged, it suddenly felt as if it were mud-thick, weighing down her steps.
“How?” she asked.
“She gave herself away to help us escape.”