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My palm slid over the top of his hand, lacing our fingers together. “Yet you never ceased calling to me. You knew this would end in a battle, and you never shied away. How do you do it without fear?”

“I never said I have no fear,” he told me. “I have been afraid every damn day since I stood between you and that bastard with his sword.”

My eyes stung. All this crying was growing rather ridiculous, but it couldn’t be stopped. Something about this bleeding man had my heart sobbing at the memories we shared and the time we’d been forced apart. I touched the small bit of his scar that jutted beyond the curve of his mask.

“I face this with fear,” he said, voice low and soft. “But I will face it head-on.”

“How?”

Silas shifted and took hold of my hand, lifting my knuckles to his lips. “Because I fear the loss of you more than a battle. Should I remain hidden, should I ignore this fight, I’ve no doubt I would lose you. I won’t again.” His eyes clenched shut. “Do you . . . gods, do you know what it’s like?”

I hugged his head to me, his forehead on my shoulder. My fingers slid under his hood, pushing it off his head, so I could run them through his hair. I pressed a kiss to his brow. “I don’t know what it’s like, Silas.”

“My words are nonsense,” he murmured. “Ignore them.”

“They’re not nonsense,” I told him. “What did I tell you? I don’t care if you talk to shadows, or if thoughts come out that you cannot control. I don’t know what it was like then because my heart’s song was kept from me.”

Silas went still, then slowly lifted his gaze back to mine.

I rested a palm against his unmasked cheek, my thumb tugged on his bottom lip. “But I know what it’s like now. I know what it feels like to find that side of your heart you never knew was missing. Should I lose you, I would be broken down the center, a walking half of a soul for the rest of my days.”

I kissed his cheek. Silas let out a soft sigh and closed his eyes.

“You’re right, though,” I said. “To lose you now would be worse than any battle. I’m afraid you’ll need to be satisfied with your grand champion being utterly inexperienced on the battlefield.”

He grinned, and I thought it might be the loveliest of things. “I have a champion?”

“Obviously. You use your tongue rather magnanimously, and I would like to keep it from now into the eternities.”

The skin visible on his face flushed with a bit of pink in the rising dawn. “No arguments from me.”

Together, we laughed. Then words, another tale burned on my tongue. This time, they grew clearer. My seidr was coming swifter, stronger.

Silas grinned. “You feel it?”

“There is a song of fate here, some twist trying to break through, but I can’t quite grasp it.”

Silas cupped a hand around the back of my neck, drawing my forehead to his. “It will come. You have the words, Little Rose. You always have.”

I tilted my face until our lips brushed. Gingerly, Silas kissed me with a touch of tender hesitation, like it was something we hadn’t done before. I didn’t mind. The slow claim of his lips soothed the ache in my heart. It added a bolster against the fear desperate to pull me under.

This kiss was a slow build. Tender and soft in the first heartbeats, then little by little it built to something deeper, something with a greedy fervor. I hummed in need when Silas’s tongue slid against my lips, parting them until I tasted the clean warmth of his mouth.

He tugged me closer, one arm slipped around my waist; the other slid through my messy braids. I dug my fingernails into his shoulders, clinging to him like the slightest breeze might tear us apart.

How was it I could go so long not knowing a bit of my heart was so near? It seemed vicious and wretched. Yet to have it now, to know the cost we’d paid to claw our way back to each other, made moments as this more precious than air in my lungs. It made them richer than the grandest treasury.

These moments would be my safety, my hope, and my shield against what was to come. These moments were where I would find the courage to face every sunset, and rise, blade in hand, with every sunrise. I would fight for these moments, for they were too beautiful to lose again.

Silas’s hand slid down my waist, curling around one of my thighs, readying to leverage me over his lap on the ledge, but his hand stilled at the haunting bellow of a ram’s horn.

We broke apart and faced the sea.

“Bleeding hells.” My lips parted. “Silas . . .”

He hurried to his feet, jaw tight. Silas tugged me back to standing,and nudged me a bit behind him. His hardened stare was unyielding on the thrashing tides of the dark Chasm line.

Our time for respite was at an end.