“It’s all right, Ivy. Deep breaths.”
I can’t even fathom breathing. My brain can’t connect with my lungs. A strangled sound leaves my throat, and when my knees buckle beneath me, refusing to keep me upright, I finally collapse into his arms.
Nothing could have ever prepared me for this. It’s like someone gouged my heart out of my chest, and it’s bleeding on the cold, hard ground now, slowly losing life.
Once upon a time, the sky was a blaze of colour… But now, it’s just black.
Suffocating.
“I’m… I’m yours, Ivy…”
His words pull me back from the depths of despair, and I meet those gilded eyes. A flaming ring of gold surrounds his pupils, and I find my stars again.
It seems I did the impossible; I won the heart of a once-selfish faerie…but how?
He presses his mouth to mine, and splashes of colour return to my eyes, as well as warmth and sunshine.
“You’ll always have me. I’ll be your family from now on. You won’t ever be alone. That’s a vow.”
Alone?
Did I say that at one point?
Finally, I meet his kiss, drinking up his raw passion. “I’m… I’m yours, too.”
A heartbeat passes between us. Then he whispers in a voice only I can hear, “Têr nghalon…”
My eyes open, meeting those rings of pure gold. “What did you say?”
He swallows audibly. “My true name isTêr nghalon.All faeries have one. Now, you command my every action. You can peer into my mind if you so much as wish, hear my most intimate thoughts. You can even make mekill…Best of all, you can tap into my magic, use it to heal yourself.”
I… I have no idea what to say. He’s giving me such a rare gift, and it’s not one I could ever return. No bartering, no deals.
Just his trust.
His sheer faith in me stitches up the hole in my chest, helping me to breathe and think clearly again, and I finally say, “Thank you…Têr nghalon…”
He goes ramrod straight when I call him by his true name. Even its mere utterance allows me to peer into his mind, sensing myself in two places.
The two streams of consciousness are a little too much to handle, so I cleave free of his mind, gazing at him from my own perspective again.
We don’t speak. Instead, I nudge into his headspace, letting him sense how much I love and appreciate him, and soon we embrace beneath the light of a thousand stars, two lost souls, forever entwined.
34
Tegwyn
Thedeerpeelsanotherstrip of bark off the tree, and I draw my arrow, aiming for a quick, clean shot. I’ve been tracking it all morning, and it seems my hard work is about to finally pay off. Just one shot and my hunt will be over, and then I can return home to the girl who never smiles anymore. But I would take even a sad smile over her faux happiness. Her sadness confirms she’s real. That she’s processing her grief.
Fae magic can only go so far. Nothing more than a shiny veneer that hides the true decay beneath, and the longer it continues, the more it festers. At first, she had begged me to mask her pain, and of course, I’d obliged, doing anything I could to help the woman I love.
I gave her my true name. Something that still baffles me, and yet she has not once abused my trust, even during the thickest fog of her grief. I don’t harbour a single regret. With my true name, she can call to me from anywhere, and now it’s impossible for us to ever be apart.
It’s rare for Fae to share such secrets, even amongst themselves. A strong bond must be forged before such delicate information can be disclosed.
After all, it makes us vulnerable. In the wrong hands, a true name could be lethal. Anyone could bend me to their will, and my heart shudders at the very idea of someone squeezing the truth of my name from Ivy someday.
But I push the morose thoughts aside, focusing on my current task—the deer. Our reserves are running low, and we need the meat.
