A broken laugh escaped Lysara as she bent to him, gathering him against her with a fierceness that left no room for hesitation. His blood still stained her, but her tears stained him in turn.
“You scared me,” she whispered, voice splintering.
He cupped her face with shaking fingers, tender despite the strain. “I’m all right,” he said, eyes soft, steady in a way his body wasn’t. “I swear it. I’m here.”
The way she clung to him—the way he let himself be held—it ached in me. For all the centuries she carried, for all the shadows he bore, here they were. Choosing each other anyway.
45
Malachi
Aurelia turnedin a slow circle beneath the lantern light, her eyes wide as they drank in the impossible—branches coiled in graceful arcs above her, blossoms glowing with bioluminescent threads. Her hand brushed the carved bark of a nearby dwelling, fingertips grazing sigils like a language she hadn’t yet learned but somehow recognized.
The light caught in her hair—soft and living. It gilded the curve of her jaw, the sweep of her lashes, the hollow at her throat. She didn’t look like the girl I’d met.
Santiago and Lysara moved ahead, pointing out rope ladders and stairwells, their voices a low murmur in the distance. Aurelia stayed still. Her gaze was fixed on the tree at the center of it all, its trunk wide enough to house a temple, its roots sprawling through stone.
I stepped beside Aurelia, and together we moved toward Eryndis, who waited just ahead.
“How is this here?” I asked, my voice low. “How long has itbeen like this? Why hasn’t anyone come? No word, no sign. I would’ve come. Gabriel, too.”
Her gaze met mine—soft, steady, unwavering.
“You will have answers, Malachi,” she said gently. “I promise. But not tonight.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“It is—for now.” Her voice deepened, a slow current of divinity threading through it. “Your people are safe. That has always been my first vow. Come. You need rest.”
I didn’t move. “Tell it to the rest of us bound to Nyxarra for centuries,” I said, and I didn’t blunt it. “Tell it to the ones who bled for a city that demanded sacrifices we never owed. I bent the knee to Talon. I put my name on his leash and called it duty. I told myself I was saving them, but I was only buying time with their lives. So don’t tell me we’re safe. We were left. We were forgotten.
I wanted to hand the blame across the gap and make it hers. But I knew whose fault this was. I knew who damned my people. I made the decision. I swore the oath. I don’t even know what I wanted from her now—absolution or the knife. Maybe both. Maybe neither.
The others stilled. Even the forest seemed to hold its breath.
Eryndis met my gaze. “I did not forget you, Malachi,” she said.
“No?” My voice was low now, a thread pulled taut. “Then why didn’t you come back? Have you been here all this time?”
Her eyes darkened. “I was waiting,” she said. “For the moment that would matter. And for the one who would matter most. This place is not what you think, Malachi.”
She looked past me. To Aurelia.
And I understood, then, that there were things she couldn’t say yet. Truths wound too tightly to unravel all at once. The weight of what she carried was in what she didn’t say. And it left me colder than if she’d lied.
She turned, motioning for Lysara to follow. The stairs ahead wound through the branches, carved by hand and shaped by magic. Homes dotted the canopy—some strung on bridges of rope and woven cord, others built into the trees themselves, their doors marked with sigils and fabric that swayed in the breeze.
Santiago looked between the stairs and the path, then back to me.
“Uh,” he said, raising a brow, “not to sound ungrateful, but is there… a tavern in this place? I mean, no offense to the glowing mushrooms and floating bridges, but itisa birthday. Feels wrong to let that go quiet.”
He glanced toward Aurelia. She blinked, caught off guard.
Eryndis paused, and something warm flickered through her expression. “Yes,” she said. “There is a tavern. And a feast hall, if you’d prefer it.” Her eyes lingered on Aurelia. “I know what today is.”
Aurelia didn’t answer. But something shifted in her gaze—grief, or maybe the ache of birthdays forgotten.
Eryndis inclined her head. “You’re welcome to eat. To drink. To celebrate each other. This place is yours now, as much as it is mine.”