“We could leave.”
The thought is new. Tentative. A possibility I’ve been circling for hours without acknowledging.
“Blackreach isn’t the only city in the Veillands.” I tilt my head to look at him, reading his expression in the dim light filtering through the window. “Other places have dead who need to speak. Pyres that need to be tended. We could go?—”
“Together.”
The word settles between us like a claiming of its own. Not a question. A statement. An acknowledgment of the obvious.
“Together.” I meet his gaze. “The mourning witch and the death warden. Giving the dead what they need—voice or silence, depending on what they ask for.”
“That sounds like a terrible business model.”
“That sounds like the only work worth doing.”
He kisses me. Slow and deep and full of promise. I can taste the future in that kiss—the roads we’ll walk, the graves we’ll tend, the dead we’ll serve without either of us having to sacrifice the parts of ourselves we’ve finally learned to value.
When we break apart, the dawn has fully risen over Blackreach. Golden light streams through the narrow window, painting the spartan room in shades of honey and amber. The pyres outside have burned down to embers. The compound is stirring with the sounds of wardens beginning their day’s work.
A city that will never be quite the same. No matter what the Council decides.
Drokhar shifts, and I feel his muscles tense as he prepares to rise.
“We’ll need supplies.” His practical voice returns—the commander who has planned a thousand operations, pivoting smoothly to planning an escape. “Tools. Provisions for travel. The roads between cities aren’t safe for anyone, let alone a death warden and a witch.”
I sit up, pulling the rough blanket around my shoulders. “I have nothing. Everything I owned was in the Undercroft. It’s probably buried under rubble now.”
FORTY-EIGHT
ARADYA
He rises from the cot. Crosses to the small chest in the corner and begins pulling out items—a spare cloak, waterskins, the kind of compact travel gear that suggests he’s always been prepared to leave on short notice.
“Then we start fresh.” He glances at me over his shoulder. “The dead don’t care about our possessions. They care about whether we show up to listen.”
I watch him move around the room—this man who has burned so many, who has carried so much guilt, who I’ve chosen despite every reason to run. His body is a map of his work. Scars from handling corpse-iron. Burns from standing too close to pyres. The muscle of someone who has spent decades doing physical labor that would break most people.
My mate. The ending I was always meant to find.
“The dog tags.”
He pauses in his packing. Follows my gaze to the small metal tags hanging from the nail above the bed. The only personal item in the room.
“Torval’s.” His voice is carefully neutral. “I never told you?—”
“I know.” I rise from the cot, pulling the blanket with me like a makeshift robe. Cross to stand beside him, close enoughto touch but giving him space. “You heard his voice in the King’s realm. He forgave you.”
Drokhar’s expression hardens. The subject of his brother is still raw—will probably always be raw—but he doesn’t pull away when I rest my hand on his arm.
“I spent twenty years running from his ghost.” The words come out rough. “Burning the dead so I wouldn’t have to hear him. Silencing grief so I wouldn’t have to face my own.” He reaches up. Takes the dog tags from the nail. Holds them in his scarred palm like they weigh more than metal should. “Now I have to figure out who I am without that weight.”
“You’re the man who listened.” I step closer, press myself against his side. “That’s who you are now. The Ashwalker who learned to hear.”
He makes a sound that might be a laugh. Might be grief finally finding release.
“Is that what the dead will call me? The Ashwalker who listens?”
“The dead will call you whatever they want. They’re not known for their manners.” I tip my face up to his. “I’ll call you mine.”