I close the book, tracing the edge of its cover. “Every day. In small ways and in great ones.”
She looks at me for a long time, her expression unreadable—and then her hand finds mine. Her fingers are warm, her grip sure. The Fuegorra under her skin glows softly, answering mine.
She stays close, breath brushing my collarbone. “What is it?” I ask, brushing my thumb over her knuckles.
I cup her face, my hands shaking, and for the first time in years, my chest feels too small for the joy inside it. “You’ve just given me everything I’ve ever wanted.”
She smiles, teary and radiant. “All right,” she says quietly. “I’ll marry you.”
For a moment, I forget how to breathe. The world narrows to her voice, her smile, the steady rhythm of our hearts in the same space.
“You mean it?” I ask.
“Yes.” Her eyes soften. “I’ll marry you, Vann.”
I pull her into my arms, the laughter breaking out of me before I can stop it. She tilts her head up, amused. “You look like you just won a war.”
“I did,” I say. “The last one. And the one before it.”
She laughs too, and the sound fills the home—rich, bright, alive. It warms my blood and makes me feel like singing.
When she kisses me, it isn’t desperate anymore. It’s slow and certain, threaded through with promise. I kiss her back, and the Fuegorra flares once between us.
I pull her against me, holding her as though the entire mountain could crumble and it wouldn’t matter. I’ll find a way to keep her and our child safe.
Words from one of my favorite poems, one that I had recited to her in a very different time, return to me.
“Regret clings too easily, like burrs in the hem of a weary traveler?—
A weight that asks nothing but to be carried.
But beauty? Beauty is lighter, fleeting, slipping through open hands,
Yet it does not demand to be earned.
It simply is.
You have walked far enough beneath heavy skies, let your step, for once, fall upon something soft.”
It feels like, finally, we have turned the other stone. Finally.Finally we can begin the life we are meant to live.
Second Epilogue
ARLET
Thunder rolls through the rock like a heartbeat, deep and ancient, and every time it shudders, dust rains down from the ceiling. The chamber smells of metal and ash and the faint sweetness of Fuegorra light.
I didn’t even fucking know I could hear thunder in Enduvida, but this new damned Fuegorra has changed everything.
I’m on the birthing bed, drenched in sweat. My body is shaking. I am too tired, too raw. The pain builds again, sharp and unstoppable, dragging a cry out of me that echoes against the walls. My hands and knees dig into the cushions.
They say that movement helps
They lie.
“Breathe,” Vann says beside me, voice low and steady. “Just breathe, Firelocks. Like we practiced.”
He’s kneeling near my head, his hand locked around mine. His skin is slick with sweat, too, but his grip never wavers. He’s calm for me, though I can feel the tremor in him—see the flicker of fear every time my breath catches.