Page 238 of Harbinger

To claim a throne.

As if any of that matters. Only a man who’d never met the other half of his soul could think it did.

“I should have told you the truth.” My voice is hoarse, my throat raw. I embrace the pain and beg for more than I deserve. “Wake up, and I will. I’ll tell you about everything. Never leave a moment of my day out. I’ll tell you what I thought when I first saw you. What I think every time you fall asleep in my arms. Every stupid thought I have. Every terrible joke. You’ll hate it, actually.”

I bury my face in her hair, drink in the faint lilac scent that always lingers on her. I try to memorize it even as panic tears through me at the thought of forgetting. But I can’t force the air past the pain long enough to fill my lungs.

“I’ll spend the rest of our lives making it up to you. Just wake up.”

I’m no longer scared of the fury. The cycle. Any of it.

I’m only scared of losing her. Of never getting to tell her that I love her. Of facing my darkness without her light.

“I needed a reason to fight. To really fight. I have one now,” I whisper. “You’re my reason.”

And I don’t care if she is the harbinger.

If this tears apart the entire world.

If war is the cost of hearing her heart beat again … I will bleed for her. For this.

Some loves make the world bearable. Hers made it worth living in.

“I love you,” I whisper into her hair. “I love you. Come back.”

Silence.

And then—

A faint thump.

Another.

Hero sits up, head tilting, as if he hears it, too. But I go utterly still, afraid any movement, even breathing, might steal that sound from me. I close my eyes and count the heartbeats as they grow stronger.

“Whatever comes, we face it together,” I whisper. “I’m not afraid anymore.”

The rhythm beneath my palms steadies into a fierce beat, pounding its way back to the world.

Faint red shapes thread across her skin, barely visible. But it isn’t a birthright. It’s vestiges. Hundreds of lines mapping themselves on her arms, over her hands, across the strip of collarbone visible under her bloody shirt.

I look up. Search for her star in the Night’s Scar. But as the sky overhead darkens, it’s as if the night has dropped a veil.

Her star fades, winks out, then blazes back to life.

And the Night’s Scar splits like an unhealed wound torn open once more, and behind it …

Stars.

Hundreds of them.

Thousands.

They were never gone.

They were hidden.

And something grips me. Something ancient and primal, rising from the cage I’ve been holding shut. It demands blood.