Page 199 of The Cradle of Ice

He squeezed her fingers. “Remember.”

Locked with Daal, she felt his memories became hers. He showed her what had already been revealed to her before—by the Oshkapeers.

In a heartbeat, she fell into the past.

—she hikes toward a village. Overhead, more raash’ke ply the skies. Others hop along streets or perch on walls. Children play among them, especially with the smallest of the beasts.

Nyx dropped back to the present with her next breath, bringing with it an understanding. The raash’ke had once been as dear to the Pantheans as Neffa and Mattis were to Daal. He was right to remind her. The raash’ke had not always been corrupt.

“I remember now,” she whispered.

Daal let his arm drop. “Make them remember, too.”

“How?”

Daal pointed to the sky. “Show them.”

Close now, Bashaliia struggled over the last distance to reach her. His wings faltered, his movement frantic. Once near the boulder, he fell, more than dove, toward her. He didn’t have the strength to slow.

“Get out of the way!” Graylin lunged at her.

Never.

She held her ground and cast a silent thread to Shiya. The bronze woman stopped Graylin, grabbing Jace, too. Vikas retreated on her own.

Nyx stood up as Bashaliia struck the boulder, wings wide. His claws scraped across the rock, gouging deep tracks. She lifted her arms, trusting him, knowing his heart. He struck her, but she caught his neck and let herself be carried with him to a stop. He leaned his soft cheek to hers, velvet rubbing her ear. His wings wrapped around her. His body was a furnace, but she clung tightly, happy to burn there forever.

“I’ve got you,” she whispered.

He shivered and mewled, panicked and scared.

She sang to him, softly and calmly, both a lullaby and a promise. She heard her dah’s voice joining her in chorus, alive again in her memory, where death holds no sway. She let the old refrain repeat over and over again:

I am here, right beside you.

So, close your eyes and know it true.

I am here, right beside you …

Bashaliia’s breathing slowed and his shaking trembled away.

“I’ve got you always,” she promised aloud, while never losing her song.

With golden threads, she wrapped past and present. She folded in every moment of their lives together, from warm milk shared under safe wings to this reunion now. She spared nothing: the terror, the hardship, the sting of a merciful knife, the joy amidst the terror. Through it all, there was one constant.

There were no words for it, not in any tongue or gesture. Love was a pale utterance, a placeholder for something far grander. It could only be felt, experienced, endured, even lost. Though there was no true word for it, she placed all of her faith in it.

The closest way to express it was in the purity of song, starting with a chorus of two beating hearts, of breaths sighing in harmony. From there, it continued in a symphony of joys shared, of lives entwined, of sorrows endured, until two became one.

She let that all glow forth, wordless and bright, forming a corona around them.

She sang out to the storm as it descended upon them.

You once had this, shared this.

Still, she knew it wasn’t enough. She reached into her memories and stirred them brighter, bringing back to life a span of centuries, when the raash’ke had lived in harmony with the people of the Crèche. She added this chorus to her glow, filling it with thousands of memories, of generations sharing this indescribable feeling.

She cast that corona wider, turning this past into golden light.