Page 50 of Returned to the Vissigroth (The Vissigroths of Leander #6)

M y dreams were becoming more lucid. They weren't just feelings anymore. Not just flashes of emotions, but images that began to linger long after waking. They were fuzzy but vivid, like sunlight filtered through water.

In this last dream, I was pregnant, and as my hands cradled the gentle swell of my belly, I knew without being told that she was inside me.

My daughter. My Thalia. Only… I hadn’t called her that.

Not yet. I’d whispered another name to the bump beneath my fingers—Sarielle.

A name filled with light and promise and something ancient I didn’t understand.

I had felt her moving under my skin and laughed, pressing her name to her through my palms as if it were a blessing. A spell.

Sarielle became Thalia. Somehow.

And in the dream, I had raised her. Raised her with Myccael. Not one after the other. Not one born and the other lost. But both. Together. My children. My joy. My redemption.

Thalia had grown up wild and radiant, with Darryck always two steps behind her, trying to match her fire with storm.

They had loved each other even then, though they didn’t have the words for it.

I’d watched them run barefoot through the palace halls.

Arguing. Teasing. Tangled together like the sun and the sky.

And Myccael…

He had been her protector. Her brother. The steady rock in their shared orbit. The three of them had been inseparable. Laughter and skinned knees and childhood that wasn’t stolen.

In the dream, Darryck and Myccael were like brothers. Like it was meant to be.

Only it could have never been. Had I held on to my Thalia, Myccael would have never been with us. He would have been raised by Kennenryn or someone equally despicable. His fate would have been completely different. On that path, Darryck and Myccael might have been enemies.

It was moot to try and think about it, wishing the dream was real, when in that reality, Myccael wouldn't have been Myccael.

That truth still knotted something inside me.

But the ache wasn’t as sharp as it once was.

Because I loved him completely, as fiercely as I loved my Thalia.

Whatever the gods had planned, whatever had been done, was done.

It was a cruel tangle of fate that had brought him to me and taken Thalia away.

But I was thankful in a way that the past was past, because the gods help me, I had no idea which path I would choose if I could undo it.

Because I couldn’t have had one without losing the other.

And somehow… impossibly… I had both of them now.

A fact I fully enjoyed as I walked through the palace gardens with Thalia.

The sun was warm on my face when we stepped into the upper gardens.

The scent of morning dew still clung to the stone pathways and lavender bushes.

I shifted the soft weight in my arms and glanced down at Zara, still sleeping against my chest.

Thalia walked beside me, humming a quiet melody under her breath, fingers grazing the tops of blooming valeris flowers.

“Are you sure you’re not tired?” I asked, half-smiling. “You were up with her half the night.”

“I’m fine,” she said, waving me off. “You’re the one carrying a sleeping baby through the gardens like a sun-drenched goddess.”

I laughed quietly, careful not to wake Zara. “She insisted.”

“Of course she did,” Thalia said, brushing a hand over her daughter’s curls. “She has excellent taste.”

We turned a bend where the pathway opened into a small orchard, and the boys were already there, Kaelric and Vaelen deep in some sort of battle involving sticks, rocks, and complicated rules only they seemed to understand.

Kaelric shouted something about dragons. Vaelen roared and leapt behind a tree.

Thalia sighed fondly. “Boys.”

“They’re perfect,” I said.

“They’re loud,” she replied, but I saw the soft curve of her smile.

I adjusted Zara in my arms and watched them. Watched the way sunlight danced in their hair, the way their bare feet slapped against the stones, the way Thalia’s eyes never quite left them.

This was what I’d dreamed of. Not the palace. Not the titles. Not the past.

This.

The quiet. The laughter. The second chance I’d never dared hope for.

And even if the gods never returned the rest of my memories, even if the past stayed blurred and broken, I had this.

"There you are." Mallack joined us, kissing Thalia on the cheek and ruffling the boys’ hair, before he leaned in close to me. "I missed you."

"I missed you too," I admitted. It was the simple truth. I had missed him ever since he was summoned to Myccael that morning and I had come to be with my daughter. Gods, that word. How I loved it.

"And this little vissy, too." Mallack leaned over and gently brushed his lips on top of the sleeping baby's forehead.

“What are you males up to?” Thalia demanded, tilting her head and pushing out her chin in the way I’d come to recognize over the past weeks. My daughter, battle-ready in a garden full of flowers.

“I think you’d better talk to your mate about that,” Mallack said far too casually.

Unsuccessfully, of course. Thalia’s gaze locked onto him like a storm cloud choosing where to strike—one thoroughly unimpressed. “That’s not how this works.”

Mallack raised both hands in mock surrender, though the twitch at the corner of his mouth gave him away. He was enjoying this far too much.

“You’re right,” he said with a sigh, scrubbing the back of his neck. “You should hear it from your mate. But the coward handed the job off to Myccael.”

Thalia blinked. “Hear what?”

Mallack gave a dramatic little grunt. “That he—Darryck—has been put in charge of the campaign. The one against the Eulachs and the remaining Renegades.”

Her brows rose. Surprise flickered before she drew her composure like a blade. “Myccael ordered it?”

Mallack shifted from one foot to the other, which was frankly ridiculous to see on a man who had stared down warlords without blinking.

“Well,” he muttered, “he is the susserayn. Said no one else had the right balance of experience and brutality. I took great offense, of course. But then again… he did have a point.”

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. The game was obvious now; he was stirring the pot and enjoying the simmer.

Thalia didn’t rise to it. Her mouth tightened, her arms folded neatly across her chest. “Darryck should have told me.”

I smiled. Proud. My daughter, refusing the bait.

“I told him that,” Mallack said quickly, far too pleased with himself. “Told both of them it was a stupid plan. Idiotic, really. I even offered to deliver the news myself, but Darryck insisted. Said he’d rather face you angry than risk me spinning it.”

I slapped his arm. “Which you just did.”

He grinned without apology. “What? I was helpful.”

“Truly awful,” Thalia agreed, dry as flint.

Zara stirred against my shoulder, a warm, sleepy weight, her breath puffing soft against my collarbone.

“I’ll talk to him,” Thalia said at last, clipped but composed. “Later.”

Mallack didn’t push. He simply stepped forward and pressed a kiss to her temple, murmuring, “He’s lucky you love him.”

Thalia didn’t answer. But she didn’t push him away either.

I reached across and gently squeezed her free hand. “He probably just wanted to protect you.”

Thalia met my gaze, and for a moment I saw myself looking back, fire wrapped in calm. “He should know by now,” she said, “I don’t need protection. Just honesty.”

A beat of silence. Then a shriek of triumph broke the moment. Kaelric shouted something about enemy lines and dragoon reinforcements. Vaelen dove into the bushes, clutching a stick like a sword.

I let out a quiet laugh. “You think they’ll end up commanding armies one day?”

“Only if they can be trusted not to burn down the orchard first,” Thalia muttered, watching her sons crash through the flowerbeds like miniature warlords.

Mallack folded his arms, gaze softening as he watched them. “They’ll lead. One day.”

He looked at me then. And the smile that curved his mouth wasn’t mischievous this time. “They’re Leanders.”

Mallack looked at them, then at the baby nestled in my arms, then at the two of us.

“We didn’t get this part last time,” he said quietly.

“No,” I whispered, feeling the truth of it settle in my bones. “We didn’t.”

But maybe now… we would.

“I’ll miss the grandchildren,” I said softly, while watching a large supernova burn in the distance as we flew by.

I imagined Kaelric and Vaelen still chasing each other down the orchard path, sticks clanging, war cries echoing across the stones. Zara would be curled in Thalia’s arms, clutching her favorite carved toy, dreaming of stars.

Mallack stepped up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist, his chin coming to rest on the top of my head.

“They’ll miss you too,” he murmured. “But Thalia will follow us soon. She’ll bring the children to Hoerst once the initial offensives settle. Darryck has enough on his plate. And it’s better she isn’t alone on the Icelands during the coldest moons.”

I nodded, even as I leaned further into his chest, grounding myself in the steady rhythm of his breath. The scent of him made my heart ache with joy. We were leaving, zyn. But not leaving each other.

Not again. Not ever. For the first time in a very long time, there was no grief behind the parting.

“I never thought we’d get this,” I whispered.

His arms tightened around me.

“You and me. All of it felt… impossible.”

“It was impossible,” Mallack said quietly. “But we did it anyway.”

I turned in his arms to face him, needing to see the truth in his eyes. He looked older than when we first met—weathered by rotations, by sorrow—but the soul inside him was the same. Steady. Fierce. Unshakable.

“I love you,” I said. The words came without effort now. As natural as breath. “Even before I remembered, I think I loved you. I felt you. In my soul. In the way the stars looked wrong when you weren’t near.”

Mallack exhaled, a quiet sound that cracked at the edges.

“I used to talk to you,” he confessed. “Every night. In the shrine I built in the mountains. I’d sit beside you, staring at your eternal beauty, and tell you about Myccael’s first words.

About the way the council was infuriating.

About how the world kept turning, even when I didn’t want it to. ”

I cupped his face, brushing my thumb along the line of his jaw. “I’m sorry you had to live through that alone.”

“I wasn’t alone,” he said hoarsely. “You were with me. Always. I carried you in every breath, every beat of my heart. Every waking moment, and even when I slept, I dreamed of you.”

I blinked against the burn behind my eyes. “You never gave up on me.”

“Never,” he said, lowering his forehead to mine. “Even when the gods took you. Even when I buried you, I still believed we’d find our way back.”

“We did,” I breathed.

His mouth brushed against mine, so soft and reverent. It wasn't claiming, not yet. This was just us, a remembering and a promise.

“I love you,” he whispered into the space between our lips. “In this life. In the next. In all the ones we lost and all the ones we’ll build again.”

I closed my eyes as he kissed me.

And this time, I kissed him back with everything we’d survived, every broken piece remade, every shadow burned away.

The stars outside the window blurred, and somewhere behind us, the ship shifted into motion. We were going home, to Hoerst.