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I thought of Vesper. “She was your childhood. Your past. What we have together is another lifetime. Quite literally. Don’t be ashamed of your mistakes. We’ve both made some.” I smiled. “But to hear you say ‘gods’ sounds quite strange now.”
“Doesn’t it? Standing in a temple is even stranger. During all of those prayers to the Three during your coronation, I kept wanting to laugh hysterically.”
“That’s probably because Nightpaw was climbing that courtier’s trousers,” I reminded him. I thought for a moment. “But what does that even mean? Beyond death?”
“You remember Zorya and Nedola? How they didn’t want to be reborn in Aercanum? They didn’t want to stay. They wanted to... go on.”
“I remember.”
“Well, for you and me... What I think this means is... we can’t do that. We can’t go on. Not without the other.”
I stared at him. “So you couldn’t really have died for me?”
“I might have died. You might have, too.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Death isn’t necessarily the end, Morgan.” He shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know how it all works. Gods—” He caught himself and grimaced. “Even the gods, or the ones we grew up thinking might be gods, didn’t know. Isn’t that what we both learned up there that day?” He took a breath. “Nedola said there would be a price. It might have been my death and yours. But since we both lived...”
“We’re bound, through this life and the next. If there is one. Not just words,” I said slowly.
“Not just words,” he repeated.
My pulse thudded in my ears. “Perhaps we’ve been missing something else.”
“Something else?” Draven tilted his head.
“If Nedola and Zorya wanted to leave Aercanum. If they wanted to go on, then maybe they knew something we don’t.”
“Or they simply wanted a chance at peace. At nothingness.” Draven shrugged. “We’ll never know.”
“Oh. Right.” For a moment, I’d been excited. Thinking of the idea of Medra somewhere else, out there. Anywhere.
But if Medra had somehow gone on, if there really was something out there for her, then that meant it might be out there for my father, too. And that didn’t bear thinking about.
“The fae didn’t originate in this world,” I said slowly. “At least, the ones everyone believed to be gods didn’t.”
My father. His sisters. The original pantheon.
Draven nodded. “I think your father confirmed that essentially, yes.”
“So then where did we come from? If not here, where?”
Draven shook his head at me in amusement. “I hope you don’t think I have the answers to that.”
“No,” I admitted with a sigh. “Not really. I mean, that’s not to say you’re not a brilliant man...”
“Thank you.” Draven smirked.
“But... no. I don’t either.” I frowned in disappointment.
“Maybe we can find the answers together,” Draven suggested. He pulled me against him and kissed the top of my head. “If there’s anyone who could find answers that even the gods didn’t have, it would be the beautiful, stubborn, unstoppable woman I’m holding in my arms right now.”
“I’m flattered you think I’m unstoppable and even more relieved to hear you understand that’s all I am now—just a woman,” I said, laughing. Albeit, an unusual one.
To my surprise, he held me by the shoulders and looked down into my face intently. “That’s the sound that makes my life complete.”
“What?” I laughed again, a little awkwardly this time.
