Theron exhales, his shoulders sagging before he places a paw on his chest. “When you collapsed, I thought I’d lose you. I thought that restoring balance and following the prophecy would mean nothing if you weren’t here.”
His paw presses harder against his heart as he speaks. “Your soul is wounded, and I brought everything else upon you. I was a selfish male. A selfish mate.” He clenches his paw into a fist. “I should have taken you far from all of this. I should have shielded you from the world, from everything. I should have shown you that you can trust, that you can love. That you can see the beauty in life.”
If he had shielded me, everything my mother taught me—everything she sacrificed—would have been for nothing. Her lessons weren’t to coddle me or to keep me from the world. They were to prepare me to restore balance, to make me the leader I am meant to be.
Everything points to me. The blue-rose blood, the prophecy, the vólkins, the spirits, and the goddesses. It all comes back tome.
Theron didn’t ask for this, no more than I did. None of it was by choice.
“If this is what you want, my mate, I will move. But I will not leave you to weather it alone.”
And with those words, he steps aside.
My heart sinks at what I see.
36
WHERE ROSES BLOOM
“There’s something calling me beyond these woods, Elder Aïna. I can’t explain it, but I feel her. Like a thread tugging at my chest. If I follow it, I may not return. But if I stay, I’ll always wonder what I left behind.”
—Ándor, one year before the barrier rose
Noël
Ándor, my love and my life. We were meant to raise our Noël together, but now I face this world on my own. I will always be your Eyleen, your blue rose.
A grave. This is a grave.
Ándor’s grave.
My heart feels like it’s been ripped apart as the truth stands before my eyes. Mother was Ándor’s mate. They wanted to raise me. Together. Ándor... Ándor is my father. I just now understand what truly happened. He left Ávera when he saw Mother in his dreams, then the barrier rose, and he stayed here—somewhere—for hundreds of years, until he somehow met her.
This is all too much to handle.
We could have had a good life. I could have had them both—Mother and Father. A family. I close my eyes, the image searing itself into my mind: running through the trees with him, laughing, chasing, him catching me in his arms. We could have gone back to my mother, together. We could have been happy.
Shecould have been happy.
I fall to my knees. The ground feels cold. It feels like the day they took my mother’s lifeless body away, the carriage creaking as it carried her farther and farther from me. Carried where?Where is she?
Father . . . do you know where Mother is?
My vision blurs, tears slipping down my face. With every tear, each drop that lands on the ground, blue roses bloom. One by one, they spread around the grave, bright and glowing against the earth.All these roses...
Mother cried here. She never cried in front of me, but I know she did. She was grieving. She buried her loved one, her mate.
She wasn’t born and raised in Tárnov. No. She was here, near the barrier. She wanted to raise me in Ávera. She hoped for a better life for us.
A sob tears through me, raw and wounded. I want to scream until there’s nothing left inside me. We could have lived a happy life. Mother. Father. Together.
My hands tremble, and I feel the crystal’s warmth against my chest. Its light glows brighter. My eyes widen.
Ándor... he’s listening. I found him, but it’s too late.
My hand shakes with how forcefully I grip the crystal. “You saved her, didn’t you?” I whisper, my voice cracking under my own words. “You didn’t leave her without reason, right?” The lump in my throat burns painfully, and my breath hitches.
“A vólkin would never leave his mate,” Theron says, crouching beside me as his claws trace over my braid.
