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The morning of my mother’s funeral, I awoke in Kalen’s bed with his warmth seeping into my skin. I kept my eyes closed, even when consciousness returned just so I could stay wrapped in this cocoon for a little while longer. My upper back and thighs ached from the past few days of our training, but I hadn’t been able to escape the sharp pain in my heart.
“Good morning, love,” Kalen murmured, clearly sensing I was awake.
I opened my eyes, and the softness in his sapphire gaze made my breath catch. “Good morning.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I don’t want to do this,” I whispered, speaking of my mother’s death for the first time since the attack. I’d tried to bottle it up, to chase it away by training my body so hard it nearly broke, and by diving into the library stacks, searching for answers. None of it had worked. “She didn’t say goodbye before she fled into the mists. She was going to leave without saying a word.”
And that was the root of it. Deep down, I was more than just grieving. The betrayal stung. I never would have left her like that. If anything, I would have done the opposite. I would have stayed, even if I hated every moment of it.
Tears slipped down my cheeks. “Every time I thought about running away from Teine, I didn’t. I couldn’t leave her and Nellie and Val. I stayed because of them. I searched the fucking mists, trying to find her when I thought she was lost out there. And then…”
I closed my eyes.
Kalen brushed his thumb across my cheek, clearing away the tears. “I know.”
“I stabbed you,” I choked out. “When I thought you’d hidden the truth about her captivity from me, I stabbed you.”
“I know.”
“And she just left me here without saying goodbye. I never would have seen her again!”
The words ripped out of me like trapped steam from a kettle, the boiling emotions desperate for release. I gripped the sheets and shook my head, hating my anger. I didn’t want to feel this way. This twisted grief was tearing me apart inside. My heart felt like tattered ribbons, the edges jagged, as if cut by a serrated knife.
Kalen just held me against him. He didn’t try to talk me down or wipe away my worst thoughts and fears. He just let mefeelthem. He listened as I talked. And when it was finally time to rise, I did feel a little better. The burning sensation in my heart—that feeling of sharp fangs ripping through me—wasn’t gone, but I did feel like I could breathe a little easier, as if I could actually think.
I started to feel a bit more alive.
* * *
We held the funeral at the Ivory Cliff Falls, and at least a hundred others—a mixture of fae and mortals—had gathered to bid farewell to the dead. Armed warriors stood along the perimeter, gazes focused out on the mists. Toryn had set out a grand table with ornamental legs, and ten glass jars were lined up in a row down the center of it. Each one held the ashen remains of our loved ones.
A Druid, a man with deep black hair and several rings along his jawline, stepped up to the table, facing the crowd. His long strands blended into his midnight robe, and a swirling tattoo glistened on his hands, etched in a silver ink that matched the color of the moon.
I’d donned a simple black dress, as had Nellie and Val on either side of me. I held on to them both as tightly as I could, but it was Kalen’s steady presence just behind me that kept me from breaking down into tears.
“We’ve come here today to mourn the loss of ten precious souls,” Druid Balfor began in a calming voice that sounded like a river running over stones. “Their time has been cut short, but in your grief, you must remember they will never truly perish. On this table, we have their essences, and we will give it back to the waters of this world. They will become one with the earth, and they will forever live on, not just in our hearts, but in the very ground beneath us. Now, repeat after me:
Grant, O Life, the strength to carry on;
And in that strength, give us understanding;
And in understanding, let us know love;
The love of all existences.”
“The love of all existences,” all the fae repeated. Even Kalen spoke the prayer in his rumbling voice. I whispered the words myself, though I’d never known much about the Druids. In Albyria and Teine, the only deity we worshipped was Oberon himself.
“Now,” Druid Balfor said, casting his gaze around us. “We need a loved one for each of these souls.”
I stepped forward, along with seven other humans and two fae. One by one, we took a jar and carried it over to the waterfall, scattering the ashes into the lake. When it came my time, my hands shook so hard I worried I might spill the ashes before I even reached the water.
Nellie moved to my side and placed a hand on mine. I met her gaze and nodded, a lump in my throat. Together, we held the jar over the lake. I closed my eyes, picturing my mother’s kind smile. I’d always thought of her as so strong, so impossible to ruffle. She took everything the fae threw at us, and it never broke her. And yet, she must have been struggling for so very long. The world became blurry around me, and I shuddered.
“Goodbye, mother,” Nellie whispered, her words almost drowned out by the thundering falls.
My tongue felt as if it were made of sand, but I managed to choke out, “Goodbye.”
