Page 18

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

Renwick

Time passed, and yet, it did not.

I could not say if it was minutes or days that Asteria and I wandered the forest around the willow tree. We talked as we had thousands of years ago, and she asked me gentle questions about Oralia, our bond, our journey from distrust to devotion, and everything in-between.

All the while, there was a humming within my chest. If I listened carefully, I thought it sounded much like Oralia’s voice as she grew the trees in Rathyra and the grasses in Infernis. The sound of creation was swimming through my veins. I missed her, but the sentiment was too simple for the bone-aching need I had for my mate.

The humming became louder like fingers plucking on a silver string. We were crossing a narrow creek, the clear water rushing over dark river stones, glittering in the dim moonlight, when something shifted in my peripheral vision. A figure with waving hair stepped carefully through the trees.

“Oralia,” I breathed.

But as I made to move forward, Asteria cautioned me with a hand on my elbow. “It is merely her consciousness on the edge of dreams. You must be gentle.”

I took a deep breath, quelling the urge to rush her into my arms, smother her in kisses, and never let her go. Instead, I took a careful step, then another. Oralia’s attention was fixed instead on the high snow-topped mountain in the distance. I placed my hand on her arm, breath catching in my throat at the feel of her beneath my palm and the curl of her hair around my wrist.

“ Eshara… ” The word was soft, barely more than a breath, and she turned with the slow dance-like movement of dreamers, dark green eyes distant.

She stared at me in wonder, brows furrowed as her gaze flicked across my features. But the look was dazed, merely an approximation of truly seeing. I cupped her face in my hands regardless. The burn of grief was so hot in my throat I could not speak. Oralia smiled in the same strange fashion as if she could not truly understand what she saw.

“Ren,” she murmured in the same tone she often used in our bed as she drifted off in my arms.

The corners of her lips dipped down into a frown, and I leaned forward, pressing a kiss to one side. She sighed, falling into the touch, hands featherlight as they skated up my arms.

“What if there is no reviving you?” The question was whisper quiet, barely a hum of vibration, but it carried such weight the words were stones dropped into my pockets.

And so I kissed her cheeks, her temples, the furrow between her brows until it smoothed, allowing her to trace the planes of my face with her fingertips even as her eyes turned glassy.

“You will find a way,” I answered, catching a tear with my lips before it could fall.

Her mouth pursed, face crumpling, and I shushed her with soft sounds. Horror was a heavy shawl wrapping around us while I enfolded her in my arms, tucking her head beneath my chin as she wept into my chest. I stroked her hair, pressing my mouth to her hair before dipping my lips closer to her ear.

“It is you I believe in, eshara . You are who I light a candle to, as humans do for the gods they worship. You are who I lay my offerings before. And you have already accomplished so much, my heart. I can feel the bond between us as I could not before, stronger now than even when we were parted by mist and magic.”

Oralia drew back enough to look up into my face, fingertips trembling as they traced the outline of my mouth, her other hand pressed to her chest. “Your heart.”

I nodded, even though I was unsure as to what she meant, but I pressed my lips to hers. “You have my heart. I have laid it in your hands.”

A tremor racked through her body, a whimper of distress echoing in the space between us.

“Let her go, Son,” Asteria instructed, agony heavy in her tone.

My hands flexed around my wife’s shoulders as she clung to me for the first time with a strength I had not known she would possess here.

“No.” Oralia shook her head, clutching herself tighter, her voice breaking with each word. “No, no, do not leave me. Don’t leave me, Ren. Please don’t leave.”

Pain sliced through my chest—through whatever remnant I had of my soul. She scrambled closer, arms winding around my neck. Her face was pressed to the skin of my throat. It was like when I’d carried her out of Isthil, and she’d wept for the things she had lost. The press of our skin had been oxygen in her lungs, feeding the fire of desperation. And it was the same now.

“I will not leave you,” I soothed, voice raw and heat pricking the corners of my eyes. “I will come when you call. Soothe when you are hurt. Protect you when you are in need. I will never leave you, eshara .”

Her form flickered in my arms even as her arms tightened around my neck. She repeated my name again and again, falling from her lips like hail from the sky, each one louder than the next, a desperate plea to not be abandoned. I held her tightly, trying to pierce her cries with words of comfort, of love, and yet I could not reach her.

“ Ren!” she screamed.

And then she disappeared.

My knees hit the damp grass, fingers clenching around air. And for the first time since I arrived in this place, the grief of all we had lost crashed over me in a wave, and I wept into my empty hands.