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“What?” She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. Her lips moved as though she was trying to form a few words. “I don’t understand. Casimir said he’s your Guardian of Ascension?”
Leto nodded. “Yeah.” He scrubbed his face with his hand. “I don’t know the why of it, but I do know if he hadn’t shown up when he did, I’d be toast.”
Her head bobbed, and she set her glass of wine on the table. “I guess this is real. I mean, I knew the war would heat up once I returned because of obsidian flame, but it never occurred to me that Greaves would go after you. I thought it was all about me.” Her mouth then fell open. “Leto, tell me you’re not in your call to ascension to Third Earth.”
He shook his head. “I can’t be. You just came back and usually couples ascend together, at least if they’ve been married awhile. This doesn’t make sense.” He paused then met her gaze squarely. “Except for one thing. While I was out battling tonight, a Third Earth death vampire said that I was morphing like a Third Earth warrior.”
Her shoulders fell. “Leto, no. You can’t be ascending.”
She rose, and before he knew what she meant to do, she crawled into his lap, slipped her arms around his neck, and held on. “Leto, I’m trying to be brave, I really am. But this is one of those moments when I wish I was like Thorne and Patience.” He felt her trembling so he held her tight. He kissed her neck. “I don’t want to lose you,” she said.
“Well, first, I don’t know if I am ascending. Second, you could come with me. I mean, if you could stay on Fourth, why not Third?”
She leaned back and looked at him. “But the portal’s closed. I couldn’t visit you on Third if I wanted to, which means you couldn’t return to the lower dimensions, either.”
“Shit.” He rocked her and kissed her. He held back the storm of feelings that threatened him right now. The thought that he could be separated from Grace for any length of time tightened his chest until he could hardly breathe.
After a long moment, and once her trembling had subsided, she drew back and met his gaze. She kissed his forehead, his eyelids, his nose, then his mouth. She lingered and he savored, letting her do what she wanted.
Finally, she leaned back and drew a deep breath. “Okay, I guess we should deal with this one step at a time. First, we need to take care of my little problem.”
* * *
Grace led the way upstairs to Leto’s bedroom. She had been thinking about this moment from the time she’d left the contest grounds and returned to his cabin to wait for him. She’d drawn some hard conclusions.
Mostly, she wanted her blue flame powerfully expressed so that she wasn’t hindered by these terrible headaches. After that—well, she didn’t know what exactly would happen, but she did know that events tonight had brought her right next to the war, and given the number of colonists that had been saved, she was glad she’d come back when she did.
Once in the bedroom, she looked up at the unusual bed. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“It was handcrafted by a local artisan.” Dried branches, scraped clean and oiled, formed a canopy over the massive king-size-plus bed, which seemed like a fitting choice for a cabin deep in the Cascade Mountains.
“I couldn’t say no to the bed,” he explained. “The woman who made it lost her Militia Warrior husband last year. She needed the money to support her family.”
“I think it’s lovely.” She ran her hand over some of the smooth branches, letting her fingers glide over nubs and arches. “And the sentiment is equally beautiful.”
Opposite the bed was a large fireplace, enough for a roaring fire in winter. But in September, not so much.
He slid his arms around her. “How’s your head?”
“Much better, thanks to Alison. And did you know that her wings have emerged? She spent the day flying over White Lake with Kerrick.”
“Wait, that has significance, doesn’t it? When I tried to rejoin the Warriors of the Blood, Luken brought me up to speed about everything, especially about Alison and that she would one day open the portal to Third. Holy shit, do you think we’re headed there?”
Shivers suddenly chased down Grace’s shoulders and arms. “I hadn’t thought about that when I heard her wings had emerged. It would cast a new light on your possible ascension to Third as well.”
He leaned down and kissed her, then drew back. “I think you might be the missing piece of the puzzle, Grace. It can’t be a coincidence that your return here, to be involved in the war, has coincided with Alison’s wings.”
Grace felt overwhelmed suddenly, and the part of her that was deeply intuitive knew Leto was right. Her return was connected to Alison, even as much as her presence here would affect the war against Greaves.
“You did good tonight, Grace. I don’t want to think what would have happened if you hadn’t embraced your obsidian power, despite your headache, and gotten the Nazca location for us. It was some quick thinking, too.”
She looked up at the branches and once more let her fingers glide over a bend and a smooth knot. She shook her head. “I’ve avoided the war my entire life. Now here I am right in the middle of it. But then I ask myself, why should I be spared these fears and sufferings? War has afflicted human- and vampire-kind for most of history. I hid out in the Convent, sent there by my sister’s disappearance. I can see that now. I’m not exactly sure that I’m worthy of you, Leto. I think I’ve been a coward.”
He drew close and put a hand on her shoulder. “No one likes war, Grace. Those of us who are built for it serve because it’s the right thing to do. But when lives are destroyed, as they were tonight, there is no real solace. So why would you choose that, especially when it’s clear you’re built for other things?”
“I want to help, that much I know. I didn’t understand how much being of use would actually mean to me especially in this situation. But because Greaves won’t hesitate to slaughter millions of people if it suits his purposes, and if I can stop him, then I have a responsibility to do what I can.”
As she stared up into Leto’s clear blue eyes, at least one thing crystallized for her. He had been in her life a long, long time and she loved him. She knew his soul, his infinite worth, even if he didn’t. If having her obsidian flame power opened and utilized fully would help her to keep him safe, then whatever sacrifices she must endure would be worth it.
