When I return, Elza is awake. She sits by the fire, sharpening her dagger on a flat stone, the rhythmicscrape-scrape-scrapea familiar, defiant sound. She looks up as I enter, her eyes immediately going to the provisions in my hands, then to my face. The wariness is still there, but the raw hatred has been replaced by a deep, troubled confusion.
“You were gone,” she says, her voice flat, the words an accusation and a question all in one. The fear of abandonment, I realize, is a wound that runs deep in her.
“I was securing provisions.” I hold out a waterskin I filled at the spring. Her eyes track the movement, but she does not take it.
She returns her attention to her blade. “You are not my keeper.”
“No. I am not.” The words are a quiet admission, a redrawing of the lines between us. I am no longer her captor. I am… something else. I set the waterskin and the food beside her. “But he needs to eat. And you are depleted.”
She finally stops sharpening the dagger, her gaze distant. “What now, Eoin?” she asks, her voice barely a whisper. “We are fugitives. Your people will hunt us to the ends of the world.”
“Yes,” I say, offering no false comfort. “They will.”
“And what do we do when they find us? We cannot fight an army.”
I look at her, at the strength in the set of her jaw, the resilience that has allowed her to survive this long. “We will not let them find us. And if they do…” I pause, my gaze unwavering. “I will kill any who come near you.”
It is not a boast. It is a promise. An absolute, unbreakable vow. She hears the truth of it in my voice, and I see a flicker of it in her eyes—not trust, not yet, but a grudging acceptance of our new reality. She gives a single, sharp nod and begins to prepare the food.
Later, as night falls again, she and Lyren fall into an exhausted sleep. I cannot rest. The weight of my choice,the threat of the Matriarch, the new, fragile life I am now responsible for—they are a burden I must carry alone.
I walk to the opening of the cave, the roar of the waterfall a constant, thundering presence. I stand there, a silent sentinel, my back to the two people who have become the center of my universe, and I watch the darkness.
Sometime in the dead of night, I feel her stir. I do not turn. I feel her gaze on my back, a tentative, questioning touch.
I know the sheer breadth of my wings seems not threatening, but like a shield to her.
25
ELZA
For two days, we exist in the dead, silent heart of the mountain. A fragile, unspoken truce settles over us in the gloom. Eoin is a quiet, efficient presence. He leaves for hours at a time, returning with fresh water, edible roots, and on one occasion, two rabbits for roasting. He moves with a new, weary grace, the profound weight of his sacrifice etched into every line of his body. He is no longer the monster from my cell, but he is not yet the man from my dreams. He is something in between, a ghost haunted by a choice that doomed a species.
I watch him. I cannot help it. While he is out foraging, I care for Lyren, but my mind is a tangled mess of contradictions. I try to hold onto the hatred I have nurtured for five years—it has been my armor, my shield, the fire that kept me alive. But it slips through my fingers like sand. How can I hate the man who chose my life over the future of his entire race?
The psychic bond between us is the most disorienting part. It is no longer an invasive storm or a possessive hum. It is a quiet, steady river of profound sadness and a fierce, unwavering protectiveness that is directed entirely at Lyren and me. I feel the truth of his sacrifice in every silent moment. It was not acalculated move. It was an emotional breaking point, a complete shattering of his millennia-old identity.
On the third morning, I can no longer stand the silence, the uncertainty. He sits by the fire, sharpening the dagger he took from the Vrakken he killed, the scrape of steel on stone a harsh, rhythmic sound. Lyren is asleep nearby. Now is the time.
I walk over and sit on the rock across from him. He does not stop his work, but I feel his gaze on me, watchful.
“I need to understand, Eoin,” I begin, my voice steadier than I feel. “Why?”
He pauses, setting the stone and blade down. He looks into the fire, the orange light dancing in his starless eyes. “Because the alternative was to allow the Matriarch to destroy you.” His voice is a rough thing, stripped of his old formality. “That was not a choice I was capable of making.”
“But your people…” The words feel inadequate, impossibly small in the face of what he has done. “You were their only hope. You have damned them.”
“My people are ruled by a Matriarch who would sacrifice her most loyal Enforcer for a marginal gain,” he counters, his gaze finally meeting mine. The sadness there is a vast, open wound. “My choice was not between the Vrakken and you, Elza. It was between her ambition and your life. It was no choice at all.”
His honesty is a disarming, painful thing. He has reframed his treason as a rebellion against a tyrant, not a betrayal of his people, and in doing so, has claimed a sliver of honor in an honorless act.
“So, what is the plan?” I press, needing a focus, a mission, something other than just hiding in this dead cave. “Do we just wait here until we starve, or until she finds a way to track us?”
“We are safe here for now. The corrupted magic of the Wildspont will mask our presence.”
“For now is not good enough.” I stand, unable to be still. The the leader in me is taking over from the confused and shattered woman. “When I built Haven, I built it on a promise that we would never be powerless again. But I also built it on a plan for the worst. I always knew it might fall.”
He watches me, his expression unreadable, waiting.
