Oskaren shook her head. “I hesitated. I could have ended all of this. Set us all free, if I’d just….” She trailed off, staring fixedly at the river where it lapped against the ship’s hull.
Thia brushed a black tendril of the girl’s hair off her forehead. “So you have a heart,” she said. “You’re not weak. You’re human.”
Oskaren huffed a sardonic laugh. “It’s not that. I think I would have enjoyed killing her.” She glanced at Thia, then away. “I know that’s not what you want to hear.”
“I want to hear the truth,” Thia said. “Whatever that is.”
Oskaren sank back so she was sitting properly, releasing her grip on Thia. “She was your only chance to go home. I couldn’t take that from you.”
Thia’s heart panged. “Ren. It was already gone. She was never going to help me.” She’d told Oskaren she wanted the truth. That meant she had to face it in herself too. After everything they had been through, she owed it to the girl before her.
She reached forward, river water rippling melodically as she moved, and paused just short of Oskaren. “Even if she would have”—she took a shuddering breath, deciding—“I am not going to leave you.”
Oskaren inhaled sharply.
It was a shock, Thia supposed, since all she’d wanted since she’d arrived was to leave. And that desire was still there—she refused to live in a reality where she would never see Grandma Winnie or Riley again. But going home wasn’t an option if it meant abandoning Dess. Leaving Oskaren. She knew that now, in the aftermath of the queen’s destruction. It was the truth that had allowed her to manifest that shield. They were a part of her now, just as much as everyone in Kansas whom she loved.
She lifted her palm out of the waves and held it open. Oskaren watched the droplets trickle and fall from her wrist for long enough that her arm began to ache. But Thia stayed like that, letting the girl decide.
Then Oskaren placed her hand in Thia’s.
“Ren,” Thia began, closing her thumb over the girl’s fingers. “You asked me once about my home. But it isn’t a place, it’s people. It’s my grammy and Riley. It’s Dess. And, I don’t expect you to feel the same—that is, feel however you want to feel. But you have to know, I mean, I want you to know…” Her cheeks burned, but she forced herself to hold the girl’s gaze. She swallowed. “It’s you too.”
Oskaren’s brows rose, that frown breaking for the first time since they’d left the Isle of Bones. She pulled away, and Thia thought that was the end of it, but then both her hands came up to cradle Thia’s face. She inspected her for half a second, maybe two, until, satisfied with whatever she found there, she pressed their mouths together.
It was not the fire and ice of their first kiss, when Thia was dying, and Oskaren was screaming from behind the wall of the curse. It was infinitely more precious, languid, like the Losrohiri land had made them immortal by proxy, and time could no longer be wasted. Oskaren’s fingers dug pleasantly into Thia’s ribs until she was breathless, until her own tangled in Oskaren’s clothes to tug her closer. Thia traced Oskaren’s shoulders, her back, anything she could touch, pleased by the low sound Oskaren made in her throat. Her hands found the tie that bound Oskaren’s short locks, and she moved to slip it free, only to halt at dry crust she found there.
She pulled back and pressed her fingers gently to Oskaren’s mouth when the girl tried to capture her lips again. “Are you hurt?”
Oskaren traced a finger over Thia’s brow and down her cheeks, like she was trying to memorize the shape of her face. A small smile tugged her mouth, though her eyes glistened like she might have just been crying. “It’s just a cut from the witch knocking me unconscious. I feel fine now.”
Thia wound her arms around the girl’s neck so that they were chest to chest. “Just fine?”
Oskaren paused as though considering. “Could be better—ah!” Whatever she was going to say was cut off by a mouth full of river as Thia pressed down on her shoulders, driving her under.
It took Oskaren less than a second to wrap her arms around Thia’s legs and tug them out from under her. Thia dove for the surface, and they both rose from the water, gasping, but full of mirth, which Thia clung to against the despair that hovered like a dark cloud just beyond.
“Come on,” she said, taking the girl’s hand again. “We should get you clean as well.”
Oskaren obliged, sinking into the river again so that Thia could reach her head. As Thia began to scrub the blood from her scalp, Dess emerged from the trees, his timing suspicious enough that Thia wondered if he had been listening.
“I know what we should do,” he said, a little tentatively, like he thought they might argue.
“What?” Thia asked, scraping a particularly thick patch of what appeared to be witch blood off Oskaren’s ear with her nail.
Dess chewed his lip. “We should find the Descendant of Lore,” he said, voice low. “The Ghost Queen.”
Thia stilled, meeting his twin hazel gaze. “Before Solanthe does.”
Oskaren straightened, water rippling as she stood to face him. “End this for real.”
End this. Meaning kill Solanthe, yes. But also—overthrow a kingdom. Return its rightful ruler.
Thia had never wanted some grand destiny. She wasn’t her mother. But she thought she might finally understand a small part of her, what it meant not to be leaving something behind, but fighting for something ahead. To make hard choices, not for lack of love, but to preserve something else just as sacred. They were both part of her, Kansas and Eldris, because the hearts she lived in existed in both. She didn’t care if she was the Storm Crow. But she cared that her brother had a family. That Oskaren was free, in every way.
And Thran. Thran, who should have been there with them for this decision. Who had fought his way back from the consequences of Solanthe’s cruelty, just for her to crush him again. Who had died saving Thia, because she hadn’t learned this lesson fast enough.
So no, she didn’t care if she was the Storm Crow. But if becoming it would ensure that no others would suffer that same unjust end, she would do it.
