When options are slim, even the most rotten meat seems palatable.
And beneath this mountain lives an army of Fíur du Ath we haven’t begun to pick through. Not to mention we’ve yet to locate Sereme. I’m not letting a single drip of Kaan’s blood out of my sight, lest the bitch find a way to sink her serpent fangs in him.
“I’ll be back once I’ve had a meal and slumbered. Then I should be fitto rethread his muscle fibers back together.” She lumps her bag on her shoulder. “I’ll check in on Veya on the way to my suite.”
“That would be good, thank you.”
She offers me a knowing dip of her head as I move to open the door for her. The moment she’s out, I clonk it closed, then slide the dead bolt shut, releasing a slow, shuddering breath.
The slightest fissure.
I clear my throat, steady myself, and move around the pallet. Crouching beside Kyzari, I lean close and whisper against her ear. “I need you, too …”
She doesn’t respond, tucked somewhere deep. Perhaps hiding from things that shouldn’t have happened. From hurts that shouldnever have happened.
The tips of my fingers tingle as I study the slants of her beautiful face, certain I would doanythingto take her pain away.
Anything.
I sweep her hair back from her brow, feeling around the diadem latched to her forehead like a fucking parasite, wishing I could rip it off. It’s supposed to be some great honor to guard the Aether Stone, but I can’t shake the feeling that this is no honor at all.
That despite everything I saw atop that mountain, bearing the diadem’s weight is somehow hurting her.
I try to move the feeling aside, but it continues to gnaw.
Lips pinched, I reach into my pocket and pull out little Nee. Still just as lifeless as she was the moment I found her in the cell, but in one piece again—stitched together with a fine white thread I pulled from the cloak Kaan gifted me.
Unfolding her, I reveal the words inside …
I pleat her back into shape, pausing after I press the final fold in place, breath held as I wait to see if she’ll take flight this time. But she just lays there, unmoving in my hand.
Gone.
I take small comfort in the fact that although Nee is lost, Kyzari and I found each other. I think that’s what Nee wanted from the moment she was first folded into existence.
The thing that made her special.
She was the quiet stitch urging us together, gently tugging. I just wish she was here to see all her hard, fluttering work pay off. To be with us as a family.
I tuck Nee into Kyzari’s loose grip, then ease a pelt up to her chin. Moving around to the end of the pallet, I climb on and nestle between her and Kaan, resting my head on his shoulder.
He shifts, and my heart hitches as his arm comes up, reaching over his abdomen to settle on my waist, compacting me with so much solid emotion it aches to breathe. He tips his head to the side, opens his eyes. The first time I’ve seen them since we said goodbye in the pit.
My chin begins to shake as our gazes meet with such tender force that capturing a falling moon would feel less significant.
A dense, choked sound catches behind his trembling lips when his gaze shifts past me to where Kyzari is. To where our daughter lies—breathing.
Alive.
He squeezes his eyes shut, face crumbling. Though he doesn’t make a sound, I hear it all.
His relief.
His pain.
“Rygun—”
“Not now,” I murmur, bringing my hand up to cup his jaw, his beard thick beneath my fingers. A rough unkemptness I gently smooth.
