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Chapter Thirty-Three

Daeros—the Sea of Bones

I stand alone on the edge of the Sea of Bones. I watch the sun rise, slowly at first, then swift and sudden, dazzling the depths of my being with its brilliance.

“Hello, My Lord,” I say. “Good morning.”

I know I imagine the Yellow Lord’s laughter in my ears, but it heartens me all the same.

I sense Ballast step up beside me, but for a while I don’t turn to look at him. We stare together out over the Sea.

“Are you content, Brynja?”

It’s not a question I was expecting, and I don’t know how to answer it. “Are you?”

He laughs softly. “I think I am.”

“What happens now?” I slide my hand into his, feeling a spike of happiness as he laces our fingers together.

“Whatever you want to happen,” he says.

“What if I don’t know what I want?” At last I turn to look at him, and I trace my free hand over the scarred remains of his eye.

He shivers at my touch. “Stay with me,” he says.

“I will stay to see you crowned and until the treaty is signed. But—but then I think I need to go home, Ballast. I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know what I am. But I think at least part of me is waiting in Iljaria.”

His eye never leaves mine. He tangles his fingers in my curls. “Your hair has gone white,” he says, wonderingly.

I laugh a little. “Something I will have to get used to.”

“I like it,” he says, and kisses my brow.

“Will you come back to me?” he says then. “After you have found what you’re looking for in Iljaria, will you come back to me?” It is an echo of his question to me down in the tunnels, when I told him I didn’t want to live in the dark.

But there is no darkness here. “Yes,” I whisper. “I’ll always come back to you, Bal.”

He smiles.

I tug him toward me, and I kiss him the way that, down in the dark, I wanted to kiss him: in the light of the blazing sun.

His lips are soft and warm and wild, and they move against mine in a liquid, wanting rhythm.

His heat sears me, or maybe mine sears him; I cannot tell, after a while, the difference between us.

His hands are in my hair and mine are on his shoulders, crushing him ever harder against me.

I taste his power, mingling with my own until all is glittering, bright. Something strong, something new.

When the fire has gone out of us, we sit awhile on the edge of the Sea of Bones, feet dangling over empty air. I tilt my head on Ballast’s shoulder. I listen to the quiet beat of his heart. The sun rises higher, burning yellow instead of red.

For now, I am at peace, and Ballast is beside me, and all is well. Later, that will change. I suspect Vil won’t be content to sign a peace treaty and will make a bid for the throne. I don’t trust the Aeronan emperor and his greedy arrogance. I don’t trust my brother. I don’t trust my people.

But for now—

I blink over the glacier sea. I close my eyes. I watch the spots of light dance behind my eyelids. I squeeze Ballast’s hand.

For now, there is peace.

The darkness is gone.

We dwell in the light.