Page 93 of Shifting Hearts

TEN

Brannan

T he cathedral couldn’t hold us anymore. The magic that had once flared through its bones like wildfire had died out, leaving behind ash, silence, and the weight of what we’d done. The walls still whispered of endings. Of survival, but not of sanctuary.

So we left.

There were no words at first. Just her hand at the small of my back, steady and warm, as if she feared I might unravel again if she let go. I wasn’t so sure that she was wrong.

The air smelled of decay and smoke. Ice still clung to the roots in the shaded hollows, but the trees had started their slow exhale toward undoing the damage the King and Queen had left in their wake. Eris walked beside me like someone who wasn’t afraid of the wind anymore.

Her cottage waited at the edge of the woods, crooked and stubborn, as if it had grown there from the roots and shadows themselves.

The timbered walls leaned at impossible angles, their joints gnarled like old bones, and the roof sagged under the weight of moss and memory.

The door stuck, swollen with damp and age, and creaked a long, slow protest when she pushed it open.

Inside, the hearth still remembered how to catch, flickering with a shy, amber warmth, though soot and ash clung to the stone like remnants of old spells.

The rafters were strung with dried herbs, their leaves brittle, scenting the air with rosemary, bitter mint, and the faint copper tang of iron—reminders of both healing and sacrifice.

Shadows gathered in the corners, thick and still, curling around the edges of the furniture like silent guardians.

Bone charms, carved from teeth and talismans of things long dead, leaned against shelves or dangled from nails; some hummed faintly, echoes of spells cast and oaths broken.

It wasn’t whole. It had scars and secrets, cracks that whispered of past power and past pain.

But it was hers. And in its crooked, stubborn way, it welcomed me too.

She stripped the bloodstained remnants from my skin and bathed me without ceremony. The basin steamed, her fingers careful as she worked the grit from my hair, the dried blood from my neck. Not healer’s hands. Not lover’s hands. Something older.

“You’re too gentle with me,” I murmured, watching her work.

Her mouth curved faintly. “You’ve had enough pain.”

“I could say the same for you.”

“You could,” she said softly, wringing out the cloth. “But you won’t.”

When she pressed her forehead to mine, she whispered, “I’m glad you came back.”

I could’ve lied and said I never left, but we both knew better. So I told her the only truth that mattered. “I will again and again. Every time.”

Her eyes shone. “Don’t promise me that unless you truly mean it.”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean Bones.”

Her lips curved, sharp and sly. “Bones, huh?” she murmured, circling me like she was tasting the word. “That’s… fitting. Creepy, but fitting.”

I grinned. “Glad you approve. You wear it well.”

She stopped just short of me, tilting her head. “You know,” she said softly, almost conspiratorial, “if you get to call me that, I get to call you something in return.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” she said, brushing her fingers along my collarbone, teasing the hollow of my throat.

“I think I’ll call you Marrow… it’s not just the inside of bones—it’s what holds you up when everything else falls apart.

You—” she leaned closer, her breath warm against my ear. “You’re nothing without it.”

I felt a shiver run down my spine, half from the touch, half from the words.

“Marrow, huh?” I echoed, testing it. The word felt alive, dangerous—like it belonged to her more than it did to me.

And yet… I remembered exactly who she was: Eris Corrigan, half bone witch, half dark fey, and entirely mine.

We didn’t sleep much that night. Not from fear, exactly — though there was that too.

Not from hunger. Not from sex, though the ache of it curled between us.

It was something quieter. The body’s refusal to believe peace had finally come.

Every time she shifted, I reached for her.

Every time I twitched, she curled tighter around me, as if muscle memory alone could keep the world from taking us again.

When morning light spilled across the wooden beams, I woke to the faint sound of her breathing. She lay beside me, tangled in blankets and quiet, warm, and real.

I brushed a loose strand of hair from her forehead, tracing the curve of her cheek with my thumb.

She stirred, eyes fluttering open to meet mine.

“You’re watching me again,” she murmured.

“Guilty,” I said. “I like proving to myself you’re still here.”

Her lips curved into a soft smile. “You’re still here, too.”

“Always.”

I pulled her close, hands sliding beneath the blankets, finding the soft heat of her skin beneath my palms. We moved slow, careful — a touch, a kiss, a claim.

Her fingers traced the scars on my back, lingering on the places where magic and pain had left their mark.

“Does it still hurt?” she asked.

“Only when I think of what was lost.”

“Then stop thinking.”

I kissed her then, slowly, and reverently, as if trying to hold the moment in place.

When she came apart beneath my hands, it was like the world finally exhaled.

We lay together afterward, the morning light soft and golden, filling the room with a quiet promise.

Later, she stood by the shelf where her teeth used to hang — the baby ones, the ones soaked in spells and grief and too-young rage. Most were gone now, scattered, or spent or sacrificed.

Only one tooth remained on that frayed old cord. The one she’d driven into the Queen’s chest. The molar that carried her blood and the last of her childhood. A shard of magic that broke an oath older than either of us.

She held it for a long time.

“Do you hate that I kept it?” she asked.

“No,” I said honestly. “I hate that you needed it.”

Then she hung it from a rusted nail on the wall, beside the hearth. A grave marker. A memory.

My fang hung against her chest now. No longer magic. No longer warning. Just a promise — hers to wear, mine to offer. I watched her touch it like it still hummed, like it still held a pulse.

“Feels different,” she said.

“It is,” I told her. I stepped behind her and let my arms settle around her waist, my mouth brushing the curve of her shoulder. “It doesn’t need to protect you anymore. It just needs to stay.”

She leaned back into me, weight relaxed. “Will you?”

“Always.”

That was the last of the old questions. The rest could stay unanswered.

Later, she sat on the floor cross-legged, sorting through a bowl of old fragments she’d once kept hidden — bits of fang and incisor, broken tips of spellwork long buried. She didn’t touch them like weapons now. Just relics. Reminders.

I set one beside her — a smooth wolf's tooth I’d found long ago, back when I thought the only things I had to offer were blood and prophecy. I hadn’t known why I kept it.

But now, sitting beside her, I liked that it had no story. Just a shape I wanted her to have.

She didn’t ask what I meant. Just looked at it. Then at me.

“Always bringing me pieces of yourself,” she said.

“I’ve run out of the sharp ones,” I told her.

Then she rose and disappeared into the washroom. I heard the drawer creak — the one that always caught on its hinges.

When she returned, she was holding something in the palm of her hand. A tooth. Small and pale. Worn smooth at the edges like it had been carried for a long time.

“I never used this one,” she said, voice soft. “It came out when I was ten. I buried it for a while. Dug it back up when I started the bonecraft.”

“What made you keep it?” I asked.

Her shoulders lifted faintly. “It felt like a piece of me I wasn’t ready to give away.”

She set it on the shelf. Not with fanfare. Not with ritual. Just quietly. Deliberately. Like someone closing the cover on an old book.

“No more spells,” she said. “Just remembering.”

“Then let’s remember together,” I murmured, pulling her close, resting my chin on her crown.

We stayed like that — two silhouettes framed by firelight and the low sound of the woods breathing outside.

There would be no legend told of this. No ballads sung. No fate-bound ending.

But she had given me her tooth — not for power, not for prophecy. Just because she wanted to.

And that was enough.

That was everything.