“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.
But he got it. He survived.
So I cling to this málmr and the hope it serves, pouring my love into it even when we’re not tangled in the sheets of our pallet or within our special place. I cling to it, and I beg the Creators to let us have this love with every beat of my heart. Most of all, I beg for them to keep Kaan safe.
Living.
Breathing.
I’ve lost so much already. The thought of losing him, too …
It’s buckling.
Acrackling sound nudges me from a sleep that slicks to my mind like oil. A sleep so deep and silent my body feels like stone.
I pry my way toward awareness, lulled by the patter of rain upon the glass stoppering the skyhole. Groaning, I nuzzle deeper into the calloused scoop of warmth cupping the side of my face, a dense weight draped over my waist that’s comfortable.
Familiar.
Another crackling boom clefts the air, a flash of light igniting the backs of my lids. The weight moves, a hand sliding across my ribs, tucking me closer to a solid wall of breathing, pulse-pumping heat …
He’s still here.
My eyes pop open, breath catching. I take in the domed room I’ve grown so fond of, the dragons carved all over the rounded walls barely visible in the dull, stormy light.
A rumbled breath blows upon my ear, a shiver crawling from the base of my spine all the way to the tips of my toes as I settle into the conclusion that this is not a dream. Nor is it a chest-squeezing memory.
The immense presence pressed against my curved spine … The muscular legs tangled with mine … The hot breath upon my flesh …
My heart labors.
Real. All real.
I draw my lungs full of air laced with the scent of cream and molten stone. Releasing a slow exhale, I think back through my drink-sodden memories, recalling our pillar-top kiss. A dusky scramble of moonlit dips and twirls. Chest-aching laughter. The tangy taste of Moonplume’s Breath smacked upon my lips.
I remember the rain hammering down, me gripping Kaan’s hand and tugging him along the esplanade. The shore.
Through the jungle and up a twirl of stairs.
I remember him giving me privacy I didn’t want as I dressed into my sleep shift. Remember climbing amongst the sheets, then ardently wishing for him to crawl in beside me and hug me until I fell asleep like he used to do with Elluin—feeling my well-won Skripi leverage yank from my chest like a flower ripped from its pot. Because drinks and laughter and love obviously turn me into a fucking idiot.
It’s an effort not to groan at the realization that I tossed my contingency wish out the window just like I tossed that iron cuff into the Loff after Kaan picked it free.
Hindsight and all that. Though it’s hard for me to find a true flare of regret beneath my ribs. Not with the memory of me drifting off while he ran his fingers through my hair—humming my calming tune.
Although …
My mind latches onto the vaguest wisp of memory. Of his voice upon my ear as unconsciousness clawed at me. Something about … a painful truth I need to know?
Creators.
Don’t want that.
Another flash of lightning floods the room full of static energy, raising the hairs on the backs of my arms.
Kaan groans, shifting, and I use the opportunity to churn in his hold until I’m facing him, breath stilling when I see his sleeping face. Instantly regretting it, realizing I should’ve just crawled out and left without looking back.
His black hair is skewed, bun loose, tendrils strewn across his brow that I want to trail a line of kisses upon.
I lift my hand, dancing my fingers over his shapely lips, pretending to touch them. Pretending to thread my fingers through his beard, then brush his long black lashes.
Sucker for punishment, my gaze travels farther down.
He’s shirtless, his body so bold in the flashing light, etching his rounded muscles into a work of art slashed in too many pale scars to count. Harshly chiseled.
Raw.
Beautiful.
I think back to some of the memories I’ve been struck with since I almost died from that head injury at the crater, frowning …
In not one of them was he so covered in scars.
It’s hard to imagine him surviving some of the wounds he’s obviously endured in the time we’ve been apart, that stony organ in my chest squeezing at the thought of him curled on a seater with a puncture in his gut—stiff and lifeless.
Pale.
At the thought of waking beside him, holding him close to keep him warm—only to find that he’s not. That he’s just as cold as our little snow cave, and that his eyes aren’t closed at all. They’re wide open, and they won’t blink, no matter how hard I shake him.
Scream at him.
Beg him.
Just like I begged Fallon.
I can’t do that. I can’t lose somebody else.
Exactly why I need to get the fuck out of here and leave. Now.
I look at his lashes again, imagining myself leaning forward to kiss them both—soft and slow. Imagining my nose nuzzled into his neck, drawing my lungs full of his scent. Imagining myself pressing my forehead to his, telling him the three words I know Elluin felt in every fiber of her being, planting a final kiss upon his cheek—
Go, Raeve.
My heart throbs with an agonizing ache as I rip my gaze away, shift his arm to the side, and sit up. I drop inside myself and begin shucking the beautiful memory of all the warm, lustrous layers that could make me want to stay and live this past slumber again, and again, and again.
Forever.
Kaan’s arm lashes around my middle, snapping me back to the now. With a surge of might, I’m lugged against his chest, bound in his embrace.
“Wh—”
“The aurora’s still in bloom,” he murmurs into the dip of my neck, his voice gravel laced with groggy wisps of sleep.
Despite my frown, my body bows to the shape of him, like we were made to fit together.
Move together.
Fall together.
“You don’t know that,” I scoff, and another bolt of lightning ignites the room.
“It is,” he says, settling around me like he intends to fall straight back to sleep. “You can’t tell because of all the clouds.”