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My back slammedagainst the ground, stealing the air from my lungs. Damn the hells. Where had the masked bastard sent me now?
I groaned and rolled onto one shoulder, coughing through the ache.
“I thought I’d done something wrong.”
The twinge of cramped muscles, the twisted arm when I landed, faded when I shot to my knees, my focus over one shoulder. A laugh, heavy with relief, broke free. I fumbled back to standing and rushed across a frosted creek.
Saga’s eyes were bright as a stormy morning. She opened her arms and choked them around my neck when I crushed her against my chest.
“It feels as though you’ve been gone for centuries,” I admitted, “yet you were just here.”
“It only feels like centuries to me.” Saga kissed the side of my neck. “So much is happening, Ari.”
“Here as well.” I bit the inside of my cheek.
“What do you mean?” She rubbed my ear between her thumb and finger, kissing me every few breaths as though she couldn’t help herself. “Calista said she planned to send you help.”
Ah, now the appearance of my phantom guide made a bit of sense. Another worker of seidr had summoned him. I pressed a kiss to Saga’s forehead, then pulled her against my chest. “She sent help in the form of a rather temperamental spirit who never developed the ability to laugh.”
I hoped Wraith heard me, wherever he was.
“You truly are not alone here?” Saga asked. “Who joins you? A man?” Her jaw tightened. “A woman?”
I was a fiend, for I enjoyed too much the flash of envy in her eyes. My palm curled around the back of her neck. I yanked her into me until our lips hovered close. “Listen to me, my darling menace. Every step I take, alone or otherwise, is to find my way back to you.”
“I am trying to find a way to heal you.” She hesitated. “I have the same dreams, Ari. Peaceful dreams of you and me in the longhouse where no one troubles us.”
I tightened my hold around the curves of her waist and buried my nose in her hair, breathing her in. “Saga, there is something I need you to promise me. Davorin knows what you sacrificed for me, he knows you’re weakened. You must swear to me, if it keeps you and the others safe, you . . . you will take it back.”
“The feather?” She took a step away from me, a furrow on her brow as though I’d struck her. “You want me to carve it out of you?”
“I love you for the sacrifice you made to keep me alive, but—”
“No.” Saga held up a hand. “You wish for me to abandon you because of what, Ari? Because it might be a harder fight until we find a cure for your blood? I will take the difficulties if it brings me you. Do you fear you will not wake? Because you will.” She held my face in her hands, brow to mine, practically gasping. “You will. I won’t stop until you do. So tell me, what would ever bring me to consider taking back what I freely gave you?”
“Because I am not worthy of you!” I pulled away and dragged my fingers through my hair. “Because there are still demons in my mind that tell me my wife is . . .saferwithout me.”
Her eyes widened. For an agonizing pause she said nothing. I almost feared she would agree. I almost hoped she would.
Saga’s fingertips traced the muscles on my forearm. Her voice was soft when she spoke. “You know, I also have nightmares. Moments where I wake alone in the night after watching . . . watching you turn away from me.”
“I would never choose to turn from you, not unless I believed it was the only way to keep you safe.”
“Sometimes the nightmares are so vivid, I’m not so sure they aren’t real. You have fought your wars. You don’t need to fight another. Not really.”
I placed my hands on her shoulders and nudged her back to meet her eyes. “You are my wife. Your warsaremy wars.”
She dragged her bottom lip between her teeth. “I am your wife. You have my heart, but it was not as though you had a choice. I would not fault you for returning to your land once we find—”
“I hate this conversation, and will throw the mightiest of tantrums should it continue.” I trapped her face between my palms. “Never think such a thing again, understand me? You aremy wife. To me that means you are my every bleeding sunrise.”
The corner of Saga’s mouth curved in a small grin. “Is that so? Curious that you were the fool who began this conversation with a demand that I open you up and take back my feather.” Her gaze narrowed. “If I am your every sunrise, then you are my every sunset. So you can stop trying to frighten me away, it won’t work. You aren’t cursed, you aren’t my detriment, you are my future. My life.”
Gently, I took her hand and pressed the tips of her fingers to my lips. “I will never deserve you.”
“Likely not,” she said, grinning. “But I insist you make it your life’s ambition and keep trying. That means, you must live, Ari. You . . . you must.”
On the final word, her voice cracked. I yanked her against my chest, arms around her, and held her tightly until I could hardly take a deep breath.
