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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

I WAS GRATEFUL THAT no one followed me back to Myrelinth. Fyrel was sitting in the garden near the portal. She waved, covering her flushed cheeks when she saw me. Gwyn turned, her curls splayed across Fyrel’s lap as she lay in the sun, her amber eyes glinting under the golden hue of Sil’abar.

My throat went dry. Tomorrow Fyrel’s eyes would be just as amber.

I gave them a stiff nod and tossed a dried bulb into the portal to pass into the Dark Wood. Perhaps Syrra and Myrrah were right. The two of them had become inseparable since Gwyn had found her voice again. Fyrel would follow Gwyn to the front lines no matter what.

With magic or without it. Halfling or Fae.

It wouldn’t matter.

That truth did little to quell my anxieties as I hiked through the trail and into the quiet city. The news of the selection had not yet made it to Myrelinth since most of its residents had made the journey to the spring city to hear it for themselves.

I hiked up one of the spiraling branches of the Myram tree. My muscles ached as I climbed, my worries dripping onto the teal moss with my sweat. By the time I reached the top of the tree, my fears were not completely exhausted but faded enough that I might fall asleep.

I heard a heartbeat as I passed over Riven’s burl. He was home. My legs carried me there instead. My body knew that tonight was not one I wanted to spend alone. Riven lay across the carpet, black trousers untied with no tunic on. His olive brown skin gleamed under the small faelight that twirled overhead. His eyes were not closed, but fixed on the ceiling of the burl, deep in thought.

I dropped my cloak and weapons without a word and lay on the floor beside him. He still refused to sleep in a bed even though his mattress sat just to his left. “You didn’t attend the council decision.” It wasn’t a question or a judgment.

He cleared his throat and tilted his chin upward, showcasing the sharp angles of his face. “There was no need.” Riven’s flat hand turned to a fist on his chest. “I knew my name would not be called.”

I drew a deep breath. I had suspected as much when Riven didn’t show to the announcement. “You didn’t put forth your name for consideration.” Again, not a question.

Riven was quiet for a long moment that I let stretch between us. I didn’t tense at the silence like I used to but instead relaxed along the floor as Riven found the words. Another influence of the Elverin, I supposed.

My magic hummed under my skin, not with quite the same warmth that once existed between us, but close. Like a hand pressed against a window of a memory, I could still feel the shadow of the bond between us.

Riven finally turned to me, his jade eyes misted and narrow. “Do you think less of me for it?”

I grabbed Riven’s fist and flattened it, lacing my fingers through his and resting both our hands on his chest. “No.” I pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “Though I would like to know why you didn’t.”

His throat bobbed but he said nothing.

“Are you scared the pain will return alongside your shadows?” I rubbed my thumb along his hand. “Or are you worried you won’t have shadow magic at all?”

Riven’s mouth straightened. His other hand caressed my wrist absentmindedly as he weighed the question. “Those were worries, but small ones.” Riven bit his lip.

I toyed with his half braid but eventually my patience waned. “You can ask me.”

Riven turned his head in surprise.

I pulled his bottom lip from between his teeth. “You only bite your lip and frown when you’re concerned that speaking your mind will hurt whomever you speak it to.”

I trailed my finger along the arch of his nose and tapped the point. “It would hurt me more if you stayed silent.” I bit my own lip, our agreement echoing wordlessly between us.

Riven nipped my finger, snatching my wrist to press a kiss against it, before he turned on his side too. His actions were playful, but his gaze was weighted. “You wore your title of Blade for so long it became a mask.” His grip on my hand tightened. “How did you keep the edges of yourself and the character you had to play from blending into one?”

My lips parted, but I had no answer for him. Riven saw me more fully than I had ever seen myself. Not because he could hold space for the dark parts of me I preferred to ignore, but because to him I was whole . That was why I loved him so, why his presence brought me so much comfort, because he gave me faith that one day I would feel whole too.

But maybe he had always worked so hard for me to feel that way because he never had. I had shattered myself into pieces with every choice I had to make, and Riven had shattered himself, too, every time he had to lie about who he was. My chest ached for us both. For the people we could have been if we never had to try to stitch ourselves back together.

If we ever did.

“I didn’t.” It wasn’t the answer Riven wanted to hear, but it was true. A simple answer, though a storm raged behind those words. Riven’s jaw clenched, and I knew he had his own storm to contend with. Perhaps sharing mine would help.

“I had one truth, that was all I could hold on to. One promise.” My throat constricted against each word so they came out ragged and beaten. “The only true part of me was the part that wanted to kill the king to protect the Shades. Everything else was the Blade.”

Riven’s brows pinched. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. You cared for Gwyn. For Hildegard.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, suddenly unable to meet Riven’s gaze. “I did, but not in the way I could have if the threat of their deaths weren’t haunting my every moment.” My chest ached as I sighed. “I loved them as well as I knew how to. As well as I could. But I had cut off so much of myself that it could never have been a full love. Not the kind of love you see here.”

“And now?” Riven grabbed the end of my braid and held it under his nose.

My lips twitched to the side. “I’m learning, but it still hurts.”

He frowned.

“It’s a good kind of hurt though,” I continued. “Being the Blade, doing the things I had to do, made it impossible to be a person. I don’t have a favorite color. I don’t have any skills apart from killing and spying, no hobbies, no books I’ve read again and again. I’m missing all those little layers that blend to make a full portrait of someone.”

“The deceit leeched you of all your color.” Riven’s voice was hoarse and his gaze far away, as if he were speaking more about himself than me. “Leaving only shadow.”

My heart tore for Riven. For me. I remembered Gwyn’s wise words from the day I learned the truth about him. That his choices might have been different than mine, but that our secrets had isolated us in the same way. Erected walls around us that had to fall but were a torment to break. We were two children who had grown, set apart from those around them, burdened with choices no other before them had to make.

Finding each other was almost enough for me to believe in fate. Two souls bound in shadow, two people who yearned for something other than darkness.

“Yes,” I whispered. “I know how to be a weapon. I know how to fight.” I pushed a loose strand of Riven’s hair back into his long mane. “And I know how to steal a tender moment here and there.” My finger trailed over the long point of his ear. “But how to maintain joy—to be truly content? To be a person apart from all of this”—I waved my hand over our heads, sending the faelight swirling—“that is something I do not know much of. But I learn more of it every day.”

Riven grabbed my hand and pressed the back of it against his mouth. Then he laced our fingers together and rested them on his chest. My breath fell into the rhythm of its steady rise and fall. It was my own healer’s drum.

“I know nothing of it.” A thick tear fell from the corner of Riven’s eye and trickled down his neck. I caught it against my lips and nestled my head on his shoulder. “I don’t remember much of being a boy. I always felt different—perhaps I knew I was—even before that first time I shifted forms. But from that day, I have lived in secret. From that day, I’ve tainted every relationship I’ve ever had with the lies I’ve told. Each lie drained my life of color until there was nothing much left. And it has cost those I care for so much more.”

His voice cracked. All I wanted was to wrap my arms around him and press my lips to his, but Rheih had taught me well. Poisons needed to be leeched, and some could only be drained by speaking the bitter truth of them.

“I didn’t put my name down for consideration because I feel like Elverath has given me a second chance to make things right.” Riven’s neck flexed. He stared up at the ceiling but kept speaking. “For decades, I’ve wished that I’d just been born a Halfling. That I never had to hide myself away. No crown, no magic, no mask. Just the same path as every other Halfling.” His jaw pulsed. He knew that life was much harder than that of a prince. Riven had said as much himself—or as Killian rather—in the safe house in Koratha. It shamed him to hold onto that wish, but shame didn’t change the truth; it only burrowed it deeper inside.

“But no other Halfling could have led the rebellion.”

Riven pulled back to look at me in disbelief.

I shook my head, refusing to let himself diminish all that he had done. “I could never have done it without you. Whatever lies we told, whatever masks we wore, this path we’re on has always been a shared one.”

Riven’s hand cupped my cheek. His lips pressed against my forehead. “And I am happy to share it, diizra . But I want to do so in this body. This version of me that never wore the crown or hid from it.” He cleared his throat and met my gaze. “I didn’t make choices I was proud of when I was a Fae—perhaps this time I will make better ones. Redeem myself. Learn how to be a person again too.”

I rested my hand against Riven’s cheek, and we lay there staring at each other. My magic hummed beneath my skin, and I swore his jade eyes glowed just a little. The golden flecks within their depths shone as they looked at me. A glimpse of the color oozing back into him.

So much of Riven was still clouded in darkness. I recognized it because the same shadows had only begun to fade around me. They were still stirred by the weight of Damien and his armies, of knowing the losses that would come, but I could see the horizon well enough.

But Riven’s shadows were still thick clouds of grief. He needed time. Time to heal enough to believe a version of himself he was proud of could exist. Time to believe he was worthy of the love we all held for him.

I knew too well how much time that would take.

I pressed my lips to his, as gentle and comforting a touch I could offer. I would wait for as many lifetimes as he needed. And I would hold faith that the light would come and banish the shadows away for both of us until then.

“Make me a promise,” I whispered against Riven’s cheek.

He froze. His hand dropped to my waist and slowly pushed me away from him. His eyes narrowed, scanning the door and then my face. “What do you have planned?”

I rubbed my thumb over his brow until it relaxed. “Not a promise made in blood.” I pressed my forehead against his. “Promise me, that after this is over, when we can let ourselves become dull and useless without our people dying, that we will try .” Tears formed at the corners of my eyes. “Promise me, that even when the war is won, we won’t let the darkness win. We will carve out a little bit of joy for ourselves each day no matter what happens until it is all we know. Until our bellies ache from laughing and our rooms are filled with relics of half-drawn hobbies, and we can sleep without a faelight overhead to keep the darkness from catching us again.”

Rivers of want flowed down my face. I yearned for that future in a way I had never allowed myself before. For both of us. A future that was stitched and healed, where our scars barely itched, because we were whole.

Because we were the people we were meant to be.

Riven wiped my eyes with calloused hands. “And if the darkness never clears?” His words shook with a fear that only lovers got to witness.

I kissed his wrist and then his palm. “It will. I know it, rovaa .”

My choice .

Riven’s pupils flared at my name for him. He gripped the back of my head and pulled me into a wanton kiss. His fangs grazed my flesh, almost cutting, as he devoured me.

I gave into his need. Mine had been lingering just below my skin, and Riven’s touch had awakened it. I nipped at his lip as our hands unlaced each other’s trousers. Riven grunted at the double knot I’d tied and slipped a knife from his pocket.

“Do you want to stop?” he asked, somehow finding the restraint to hold the knife against the lace but not cut.

“Do you?” I gasped into his ear.

Riven pulled my leg tighter against his hip so I had no doubt how much he wanted this.

I raised a smug brow. “Then cut it.”

His knife sliced through the laces on my trousers like they were made of air. In one motion, Riven tugged my trousers down my thighs, his lips never leaving my skin. He hiked my leg onto his hip, making quick work of my boot—it was still tied as he slipped it off.

I barely caught my breath before the second one was gone. Riven lifted me into the air, fingers dimpling my hips, and he lowered me onto his mouth.

I gasped and my gusts filled the room, trapping Riven’s hungry murmurs and my feral moans in his burl for only us to hear. The tip of his tongue circled around that tender spot, never quite touching it, until it had swelled to the point of pain.

“Riven, please,” I begged, my hips bucking against his chin.

He looked up at me, his teeth sinking into the skin of my upper thigh, disappearing beneath the curls. Then he licked me just where I needed and did not relent.

“Fuck,” I groaned as his speed increased. I grabbed the small table beside the bed we were not using and bucked my hips. My thighs squeezed Riven’s head, but I didn’t care if he could draw a breath. And neither did he. From the hungry way his hands roamed my body, clutching at me like I was life itself, I knew that Riven believed he could be sustained on me alone.

He grazed my skin with his teeth, intensifying the pressure building between my legs. Riven groaned and palmed my breast underneath my tunic. My head collapsed backward at the force of his touch.

Riven paused, concerned that he had hurt me. I grabbed his hand through my shirt and squeezed. “Keep going,” I rasped. I held onto Riven, letting his touch ground me as the first wave of pleasure shot through my body like a bolt of lightning.

I collapsed but Riven bent his knees for me to lean on as he continued his feast. The pressure built again. Riven scratched my skin as his hand trailed down my body and fell out of my shirt. His fingers laced through mine as he carried me through a second wave of pleasure. And then a third.

My head dropped forward, almost spent. But Riven had others plans. He pulled me into a kiss, letting me taste the passion he had coaxed from me. His tongue was hungry, his touch starved. His new body craved me just as much as his other forms had. Maybe even more so, now that Riven the Fae and Killian the prince could have me all at once.

Riven lifted me again, this time lowering me onto his hips. He pulled his own trousers down, just enough for me to feel the hardness of him. “I can return the favor.” I raised a brow at his half-removed trousers.

“No time.” Riven shook his head, jaw locked. He pulled at the hem of my tunic and I lifted it over my head. His eyes trailed over my naked body as he spoke. “I need to taste you as I have you.”

I leaned forward, flattening my palms on either side of Riven’s head. He turned, scraping his fangs against my forearm as I leaned down. Our noses touched. Riven’s chest stilled, waiting.

But I held us there, pinned to that moment as it stretched. The candle on the nightstand melted in a ball of flame as the carpet froze, my magic spilling out of me as the tension hit its peak.

Riven winced as my wetness touched him for the first time. His head craned up and I bit his neck, claiming him as mine. “ Diizra ,” he whispered, fully at my command. He fisted my hair and pulled me from his neck. His pupils were dark and wide with want. “I need you.”

I grabbed a handful of Riven’s hair too and pulled him upward so he sat beneath me and my legs wrapped around his torso. He lifted me by my hips one more time, only enough to line our bodies just so.

I moaned as he entered me, but Riven captured the sound with his tongue. His teeth nipped at my lips until they were swollen. His hand reached around my back as he thrust, and my nails left scratches down his. Somehow we were closer without the bond between us. This war had already taken so much from us that we were both split open. Raw and vulnerable. Starved and willing.

He kissed my scars and murmured sweet nothings against my skin. I ran my fingers through his hair and stared into the depths of his jade eyes. In that moment, we were not warriors protecting our home or leaders with the fate of our kin on our shoulders. We were just two people, and that was more than we had ever been.

I leaned back and Riven grabbed my hips, gliding me across him as my body gave way to another wave of pleasure. He was not gentle. His hand spanned the width of my thigh, inching closer to that tender spot.

I cursed as Riven touched me there. He nipped my breast with his teeth, claiming me in every way he could. His thumb flicked again, and I moaned his name.

“Fuck,” Riven grunted. His arm wrapped around me as he flipped us without missing a thrust. Riven’s hand laced through mine once more. “Keera,” he groaned as his teeth grazed my shoulder. “I will never tire of this. As long as you’ll have me—”

His words were lost as we both collapsed into a storm of pleasure. Riven fell on top of me like a heavy blanket on a cold winter’s night. When he came back to himself, he tried to push off me, but I held on. I liked the solidness of him.

Finally, I let Riven cradle me in the crook of his arm and chest. “That wasn’t a promise,” I teased, half-heartedly. I was too exhausted to speak, but I didn’t want our conversation to be left forgotten.

Riven tucked his chin against my head and stroked my hair in silence. My breaths matched his once more and the rhythm coaxed me to the brink of sleep.

“I promise, diizra ,” Riven whispered, not knowing if I could hear his words.

But I did. “I promise too,” I said as I fell asleep with the hope that this one wouldn’t cost me.