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“You liked to tend to the fire yourself and you’d sit in a rocking chair with a blanket draped across your lap as the sun rose. It was your favorite time of day.”

He could feel her heavy gaze but refused to look up. “You loved the second floor garden the most. It’s where you always went when you and Fa—if you and The High Lord had a disagreement. It was a gift from him on one of your anniversaries. I don’t remember which one. You were always rearranging it, tending to the plants and digging through the dirt despite your magic.”

Rion wasn’t sure what to do with his hands. “You loved chocolate but hated when anyone added nuts to it. You claimed it destroyed a perfectly good dessert.” He smiled at that, remembering her red face when she’d bitten into a brownie only for it to have a crunch. She’d been polite of course and ate it anyway, but even Alec had laughed at his mother on their way home.

“You would put us to bed every night and whisper a prayer of protection over us. Though you had to start saying Alec’s after dinner because he claimed he was too old for his mother to tuck him in.” His hands were shaking now. “And you used to sing. I remember the melodies, but not the words.”

His heart was beating against his ribs so hard Rion was sure they’d crack. He couldn’t escape this moment, no matter how much he wanted to. He didn’t want her to look at him with disappointment when she discovered he was a monster. He didn’t want her to learn that he’d injured The Divine. That he’d been cursed by the gods.

“Look at me.” The command in her words forced him to obey. She studied his face. The emerald green eyes that were a reflection of her own. His auburn hair, a shade darker than the long locks she possessed. The set in his broad jaw that Saoirse claimed reminded her of their father. His frame, his hands, the way he sat.

“Come here.” Rion shook his head and looked away again. He didn’t trust his voice to speak. His mother shifted Kaylee and placed the empty pack beneath her head. The young girl curled tighter in on herself but didn’t wake. Or maybe she was only pretending to sleep while listening to the adults.

Eimear inched closer. Rion didn’t move, even as his heart rate spiked. She knelt before him.

Six inches. His mother was six inches away, her gaze combing over his features again and again and again. He’d rooted himself in place, unable to shift as both hope and dread threatened to drown him.

“Look at me,” she repeated. Reluctantly, he obeyed again. Silver lined her eyes. “Rion?”

His breath hitched and Rion’s throat tightened. His mother knew. Recognized him even after all the years apart. But what could he say? What—

Her thin fingers reached for his face and Rion flinched away. The anguished look that crossed her face was enough to shatter every barrier he’d ever created. Her eyes took in the shackles around his wrists and ankles and the blood caked to his face and torso. The bruises that lined his arms and body.

“I won’t hurt you,” she promised and Rion’s breath hitched when she pulled him into an achingly gentle embrace. He heard her heart, a familiar sound that dragged a sob from his body. He gripped the back of her shirt and just like she’d done when he was a child, his mother rocked him back and forth, rubbing his back in soothing circles.

And Rion let himself split wide open.

***

It could have hours or days or years, but he pulled back too soon and collected himself, wiping at the tears running down his face. His mother’s hand met his cheek and he let her run her fingers through his hair and study him, an adult in place of the child she’d left behind.

“You always had the biggest heart out of your siblings.” Rion couldn’t help the strangled laugh that escaped him. The heart that she remembered had been crushed beneath the weight of the world, but he wasn’t about to bring that up now, not with her looking at him in a way only a mother could. Like she’d love him despite any flaw.

She cocked her head. “A war general?” He grasped her hand gently and pressed his cheek against it, wanting to feel this forever. He wanted to confess everything he’d ever done and hide it at the same time. He wanted to flee while she still loved him. He wanted—

“Rion.”

His voice cracked. “I’ve done so many horrible things.”

She moved to sit beside him and coaxed his head to her shoulder. He felt so young beside her, even if he towered over her now. “So have all who’ve encountered war. Everyone’s hands are stained, my own included.”

He couldn’t imagine his mother had been stained by anything.

Chapter Seventy-seven

Arianna

The pair kept moving through the endless downpour, determined to stay ahead of anything else hunting them through the trees.

They were getting closer now. She could smell ash in the damp air. Her heart pounded furiously. Arianna wasn’t sure how she’d react upon seeing Rion again. She knew how she wanted to react. She wanted to run into his arms and pull him close. She wanted to heal all his injuries and hide away from the world where he’d be safe from anyone ever trying something like this again. But reality might not be so kind.

Please don’t be afraid of him, she begged herself as if it would help. She hated the images her nightmares conjured. They were horrid and had her waking breathless and reeling. Arianna wondered if it had been Niall who’d initially planted those images in her mind. She might not be glamoured anymore, but the effect lingered all the same. And she hated it.

He had started this whole mess. She didn’t doubt that he’d do everything in his power to solidify his intensions.

Let him make the first move, Talon had suggested. She didn’t want to wait. She wanted to drown in the scent of her mate, the scent of their bond, and Arianna wasn’t sure her body was going to let her.

The trees stopped suddenly and opened to reveal a land covered in ash. It might have once been a meadow peppered with trees, but now the black trunks stuck up from the ground like dark pillars reaching for the sky.