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Chapter 42

IRIS

Time lost all meaning as we remained there, Aspen’s grip unrelenting. I finally pulled back, my face dry and breaths coming steady again. He cleaned and healed as much of the wound as my body could handle—the skin closed, but angry red scars remained.

“I’ll try again later, see if I can do more,” he said quietly.

In the meantime, he removed his coat, wrapping it around a block of ice he summoned. He tied the makeshift pack to my ankle, his magic keeping it frozen as we traveled. I opened my mouth to object, but he interjected before I could get the words out.

“The cold runs through my veins, Iris. The coat is more of a formality anyway.”

I didn’t have it in me to argue. I did, however, threaten to claw his eyes out when he declared the walking was too much for my ankle, and proceeded to try and carry me.

All his attempts at protest died when I palmed my dagger, and he begrudgingly allowed me to continue on my own two feet. The pain was partly a relief anyway—a reminder that I was alive.

A roaring fire blazed in front of the log we sat on. My uneaten dinner lay discarded on the ground beside us.

The gnawing in my chest had lessened, but the darkness still encroached. I felt it spread—that ever-present urge to slip into the abyss. Remembering how blissful it felt when the numbness took over, when every emotion trickled away and there was just…emptiness.

“Sunbeam…” A voice, low and gentle, halted the onslaught. It wrapped around my consciousness, pulling me up and up and up—back to the surface.

“Who hurt you, Iris?” Aspen asked, his voice dropping almost an octave.

I blinked, reacquainting myself with my surroundings.

We were in the Tundra.

Aspen was here.

The darkness could wait.

It could leave, actually. I didn’t need it. Not today.

I was safe.

We were all safe.

“Was this from Solyndra?”

Another beat of silence.

“You don’t have to tell me. You never have to tell me… but please, Iris—please, let me help you. However you need.”

What did I need? It’d been so long since I thought about it, I no longer knew. A red flush coated his cheeks, the color soft and warm and alive .

“There is a memory,” I started, staring at the blood still caked beneath my nails, at the cracks and splits along the cuticles. “Clear as day. One I wish would disappear. To stop haunting every breath I take.”

The words tumbled out as the smoke curled around us, filling my nostrils.

“I’ve had this sense of worry, a sort of anxious energy, for as long as I can remember,” I explained, my eyes becoming unfocused. “But the panic attacks started when I was nine.”

I met his gaze, bracing myself for the pity I knew I’d find. Instead, the fire seemed to spark in his eyes—nothing but understanding there.

Always so much understanding.

“I used to have more magic than this. A lot more, actually,” I admitted, returning my focus to the fire. I couldn’t bear to watch pity form in his eyes. Not from him. “The connection I have with animals, the ability to speak to them…”

I hesitated, standing on the edge of a precipice. Out of all the secrets I carried, all the lives I’d lived, all the stories I’d created—this was the one I could never escape. The one I tucked deep within my soul, suffocating it.

Not even Nadya knew.

“I’m not a Scriptor. I’m an Innatus.”

My heart cracked with every word. Thinking about that loss threatened to pull me under.

“Or I was. I’m not entirely sure anymore. But speaking with them…” My voice dropped. “It comes from my ability to become one. My former ability, I suppose, is more accurate.”

He reached out, placing a hand on my knee. Not a question—an offer.

Whatever you need.

The storm settled just a fraction more. “You can imagine my birth parents’ shock when a tiny animal they had never seen before came bounding through the marble halls of the Bronze Palace—only to find their three-year-old daughter standing in its place moments later.”

I let out a breathy laugh, shaking my head at the memory.

“Innatus power feels different than the other three classifications. They all pull from within our essence, but as an Innatus… another form also lives within you. When you shift, you become something entirely different. Separate from your being but also inherently a part of you.”

Metamorphs and Shifters were the two subsets of the Innatus classification that experienced a full physical shift, at least to the naked eye. Metamorphs could change their Ethera form to resemble another’s, while Shifters took the form of an animal—usually a mythical creature. Seer and Alatus forms, on the other hand, retained most traditional Ethera characteristics. Alatus could assume a flying form, wings protruding from their backs and glowing markings along their skin and eyes. Seers could only access their visions when their eyes took on a milky film, erasing their pupils and irises entirely.

“But unlike the others, Shifters no longer appear Ethera when they transform. I would look as much an animal as Mochi does. It’s the least common Innatus form and, as such, comes with… misunderstanding, to say the least. The full loss of Ethera characteristics—it isn’t regarded positively.”

I shrugged, taking another deep breath.

“The shift was difficult to control at first, and the council was desperate to gather information. They decided to keep the blessing within our family. After a few years, I could tell they saw me as… less than. Something to be feared. Or something to be looked down on—I wasn’t sure. Not at that age, at least.”

“To them, and to many others I’ve encountered in the years since, such a transformation is seen as a loss of empathy. As if it’s not still the same person looking through different eyes. People fear what they don’t understand,” I mimicked the haunting voice of my old tutor . “And fear turns to anger and violence far too quickly. I was prohibited from shifting outside of the security of my lessons.”

Aspen ran his thumb along the top of my thigh, creating small, soothing circles.

“I didn’t listen, of course. I spent my time befriending the forest behind our palace, living just as much in my Innatus form as my Ethera one.”

My voice trembled slightly, but no tears fell. I wasn’t sure I had any left.

“I thought I was being careful. But I encountered two teenagers on the edge of the woods one night. They saw me shift and hounded me, demanding I show them my Etheran form. The hostility in their voices was enough to send me running back to the castle, directly to my parents.”

“They forbade me from leaving the palace until the boys were caught.”

Aspen’s free arm wrapped around my shoulders, his knuckles dragging along my back. The storm remained at bay, his touch turning it into a distant thunder in the back of my mind.

“I didn’t listen.”

His movement never faltered—a continuous, steady force.

“I returned the next night. I wanted to say goodbye to my friends. The council didn’t allow us to have friends. I was nine… ” The next words cracked as they left my throat. “I was nine.”

I shook my head, steadying myself. “They set traps. Metal bear traps. Barbed.”

Aspen’s fingers stilled, his grip on my knee tightening.

“The first one was the worst, shattering the bones in my lower leg. I stepped into the second out of panic, trying to rid myself of the first. For ‘catching vermin,’ ” I scoffed. “They screamed at me again to shift back to my Etheran form, to give them answers, to teach them how to do it themselves. I tried… I promise I tried.”

I swallowed, taking a moment. “Goddess blessings can’t be taught. Their demands made no sense. I didn’t know what to do. They only grew angrier when I couldn’t shift back, yanking at the chains. One pulled out a knife, no doubt hoping that a few more wounds would force a change—that the pain would drag me into my Ethera form again.”

Aspen’s hand balled into a fist on top of my leg, his knuckles white as bone. I lifted my right wrist, shaking my arm so my sleeve fell away, revealing the thin white lines running parallel to the bite-like scars from the trap. Mirrors to the marks that marred my left ankle.

“I just don’t understand why they needed to know so badly,” My voice edged on a plea. “I was a child…”

I let my hand fall atop Aspen’s clenched fist. Beneath my touch, his muscles relaxed—just slightly. “I don’t know how long I was out there. One of the other Sunchosen had nightmares… Sometimes, he’d come to the forest with me. That night, he planned to meet me there.” My voice cracked, guilt creeping in like a familiar specter.

“They broke Bastion’s neck before I could scream,” I choked, bowing my head. “Our healing is different from other Ethera, even when we’re young. Our path to ascension relies solely on the Trials.” The ever-present ache in my chest bloomed, grief threatening to consume me whole. “He came to me because he was scared… and I put him through that. I am the reason he’s dead. ”

Aspen turned his palm upward, threading his fingers into mine and squeezing tightly, grounding me in the way he had so many times before.

“They should have killed me too,” I whispered. “I don’t know why they didn’t. Sometime in the middle of the night, someone found our beds empty and sounded the alarm. The guards’ approach sent the boys fleeing. When they brought me back to the castle, I wouldn’t let the healers near me. Wouldn’t let anyone near me. I stayed that way for weeks—fully animal. And when I finally shifted back into my Ethera form…” I hesitated, my body trembling. Aspen squeezed my fingers again.

“It was permanent,” I exhaled. “Whether it was the pain, the fear, or the damage to my other form… I lost the ability to shapeshift over eighteen years ago.”

I let out a short, disoriented laugh. The absurdity of it all. The ease with which I was telling him something I had buried for so long. The way he listened, the way his openness met mine in the middle, pulling and tugging until the distance between us finally gave way.

“I think it’s why my magic feels so foreign now. So… wrong. Part of it was ripped away. I think it’s missing its other half.”

Aspen said nothing, but the weight of his silence pressed against me.

“That’s why Solyndra didn’t want me anymore,” I said quietly. “And I don’t blame them. I was already a problem. Then, in one night, I was also the reason one of us was dead. The reason one of their precious dolls was gone.” My body trembled, rage curling in the shadows of my grief. “That was all he had been to them. And when the magic I did have left became uncontrollable… they tried to finish the job themselves.”

“They tried to…?”

“They already had one dead Sunchosen,” I said flatly. “It was easier to tell Altaerra—and everyone in the palace—that we both died that night.”

Aspen’s free hand gripped the log we sat on, ice spreading in fractures from his fingertips.

“Divine, who could blame them, honestly? Like you said, the Sunchosen are supposed to be Altaerran Gods. I didn’t have the strength to save either of us that night, against other children ? — ”

“That’s bullshit,” Aspen whipped his head around.

“You stayed alive. You have continued to stay alive .” His voice was sharp with certainty. “It is far more difficult to wake up every morning—to continue to hope, to dream, despite it all—than to slip into the abyss. That choice…is immense.”

I watched as those walls behind his eyes fell, tracked each one as they slowly melted away. His skin warmed underneath my touch. I could see every word caught in his gaze.

His eyes were so blue. So bright.

“I kept the claws, though,” I blinked once, lifting my hand to inspect the gore and dirt coating my nails, before wiggling them in his direction.

Aspen frowned. “Kept them?”

I grinned. “While I am flattered you think I can rip blankets and skin to shreds with my awe-inspiring strength , it has more to do with the claws.” I pulled my other hand free and held it up.

Aspen took my lead, releasing his grip on my shoulder to give me space. He reached into his bag, rummaging for something I couldn’t see. His gaze flicked to my leg before he lifted a tin of my salve, raising his eyebrows in silent permission.

When had he started carrying it with him?

At my nod, he knelt in front of me, gently pulling up the thin cloth of my pant leg, the looser trousers allowing him to expose more skin. Glowing firelight illuminated the array of scars—old and new—marking well up to my knee.

Aspen froze, the temperature around us plummeting with him.

“I will bury them all.” Cold fury burned in his eyes unlike anything I had ever seen.

“Aspen—”

“Iris, what those people did to you…” His voice was raw. “You may believe I lack the ability to care, may see my family and me as monsters, but?—”

“Do you really think of yourself that way?” I interrupted, my stomach sinking at the notion.

“It’s not lost on me, Iris—who I am. What I?—”

“I shouldn’t have questioned if you cared.” My voice was firm, unwilling to let him entertain that thought for even a moment longer. I shook my head, willing to do anything to dissipate the defeat in his eyes. Willing to burn down worlds for it.

“I don’t see you as a monster, Aspen. And contrary to what I say when you rile my temper, I never have. I judged you for your parents’ actions… but we are not them. You are not them.”

When he didn’t answer, I pressed on, consequences be damned.

“Sometimes I wish you could see yourself through my eyes,” I whispered. If this was what it took—allowing him in, letting him hear the words I had denied myself for so long, the pull I had insisted was anger or irritation—it would be worth it. Even if it ruined everything. Even if I could never come back from it.

“I think, maybe, you’d see how good a person you truly are… how much beauty there is in your soul, no matter how hard you try to hide it.”

I took a breath. Toed the line, then jumped.

“How easy it is to care for you when you allow it.”

It was as natural as breathing.

“You are far too good for this world, Iris.” He shook his head and set the tin aside. “And you see me in far too kind a light.”

I reached up, brushing fallen hair off his brow. “I think the mistake we make when confronted with events that irrevocably change us is the thought that somehow it was deserved.” I fixed my eyes on his, willing him to understand. “It’s never deserved, Aspen.”

A small smile played on my lips when he didn’t answer.

“Plus, scars make us objectively more attractive.” I winked. “So, we have that going for us. Utterly irresistible.”

The look in his eyes stopped my breath.

Shit.

I had overstepped. I could make light of the circumstances surrounding my own scars, but his… that wasn’t my place.

His eyes burned again, thousands of thoughts flitting across his gaze at once. I prayed to the Divine that one of them was forgiveness. His jaw tightened, and I braced myself for the walls again—preparing for him to shut me out.

“Fuck it.”

He lunged forward, hands gripping either side of my jaw. And then his lips were on mine—asking, pleading, questioning.

Oh.

Oh.

He pulled back, panting, and I watched the blaze in his eyes dim. Saw the fear creep in, his hands loosening, beginning to fall away.

I caught them immediately, clutching his wrists. His pulse hammered beneath my fingertips, singing out to me.

“Don’t you dare,” I breathed, before wrapping a hand around his neck and hauling his lips back to mine.

I was lost, and I was found. It was the answer to a question I hadn’t realized had been asked. Icy heat surged through my body, settling deep in my core. A cool breeze coiled around us, reaching for the places his hands had yet to claim. He was ice, and I was fire—flames licking at my bones, my blood a wildfire in my veins. I was no longer outrunning a storm. I was the storm—roiling, thundering, wild.

He had been holding back before. This kiss was bruising, searching, begging . Aspen pushed, and I opened, and he explored my mouth like he was searching for oxygen—desperate to survive on me alone. One hand tangled in my hair, the other wrapping around my waist as I crawled into his lap, needing to press every inch of myself against him.

It was snowing. Flakes dusted my cheeks, clung to his lashes.

His hands—his wind—brushed against every sliver of exposed skin as his lips found my neck. My head fell back, my fingers grappling at the back of his shirt, tearing at the fabric in a futile attempt to bring him closer. I needed more. And he let me take, and take, and take. He would let me take until there was nothing left.

His lips claimed mine again, his wind sweeping my hair back, tracing up the column of my throat. Just the two of us lost to reason. Lost to the world.

Eventually, we broke for air, foreheads pressed together, breath coming in ragged gulps. I lifted a hand to his jaw, tilting his chin until his gaze met mine.

“How preposterous,” I breathed.

He smiled. A smile that lit every inch of his face.

A smile I would ruin kingdoms for.

The snow was only falling here, where we sat. Our own blizzard.

Neither of us spoke. I wasn’t sure I could have found the right words anyway. Instead, we remained there, limbs entangled, ridiculous smiles plastered on our faces.

I was utterly unaware of anything except that damned smile. Aspen pulled me from the haze, lacing our fingers together, tugging gently as he uttered?—

“Bed.”

I nodded, allowing him to pull me up.

This time, I let him carry me. Let him set me down on the floor of the tent. Let him pull me to his chest and wrap his arms tightly around me.

This time, I let myself breathe him in—eucalyptus and lavender, mixing with the sweet smoke of the fire.

This time, I didn’t chastise myself for the hope. The idea that maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t let go.

His voice rang softly through the tent. “Goodnight, Sunbeam.”

Aspen pressed a kiss to the top of my head, the sound of his heart thundering in my ear somehow steadying my own. He whispered again, and it was so quiet I wasn’t sure if it was meant for me or for himself.

“You’re safe.”

Either way, this time, I believed him.