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Asker closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, then set his gaze on me. “The goddess shows me a throne room. Ammarett, I believe.”
“Why would Galantia be in Ammarett?” I asked. “Malyr won’t let her anywhere near the actual fighting.”
“I can only tell you what I see,” Asker said. “Over and over again, the goddess has showed me this vision. It will come to pass. Always the same place. Always the same event. However, the person taking the blade… keeps changing.”
“What do you mean?”
“I had the same vision of Malyr.”
The shadows in the room deepened, or maybe my vision was just going to shit because darkness rimmed the edges the longer I stared at Asker. “So, when that moment comes, one of us will die?”
Another tear ran down his cheek. “Yes. One of you has to die for her to live.”
ChapterFifty
Malyr
Present Day, Valtaris
I told Asker and Marla tonight that I would make the fuck certain that it will be me. It was an easy decision, and looking at you two now gives me nothing but resolve and strength to be the one who takes that blade.
Fate rarely gives you choices, but I was given so much more: a chance to set it all right. Ten years ago, I lost my mate. I would not have survived watching you die, sweetheart. Neither would I want you to go through the pain of losing Malyr.
Galantia, it was never my fate to find a second chance at love and life with you. Instead, it’s my fate to ensure that you have all that and more with Malyr. I cannot change my past, but I can make certain that the two of you get to share a future.
As for the both of you…
Don’t cry. Don’t be sad.
I died happily and gladly, I’m sure of it. Don’t let it be in vain by allowing it to cast a gloom over your long lives. Get drunk. Dance like we did around the fire. Fuck like it’s spring. Do it for me, yes?
I love you. Both of you.
Sebian.
P.S.: Brother, I got you back on that one, didn’t I?
“You did.” I stared down at Sebian’s letter where I slouched in the chair by my desk, that smile tugging on my lips bittersweet. “Fucking bastard fooled me good. Guess we are even now, are we not?”
I thumbed the parchment the way I always did when I read over his scribbles. Unembellished. Pragmatic. Just like him, and that thought echoed in the hole he’d left in our lives.
It had gotten better over the last weeks, of course. Each day that passed softened the grief, more efficiently when the hours were spent watching Galantia practice her archery, teach her how to saddle her own horse, or show her the first wheat seedlings out in the fields. Still, it would never fade entirely, time had taught me, flaring up now and then.
Like today.
“Are you ready?” Galantia stepped out from behind the privacy screen where Tjema had helped her into her gown, the white shadowsilk flowing around her like winter, dawn, and sunshine all at once. Her keen eyes landed on the parchment between my fingers, a soft smile curling her peachy lips as she gave me a scolding look. “He would’ve wanted you to be happy on this day.”
I was happy, very much so. What pained me was the fact that I couldn’t share this happiness with the man who’d greatly contributed to get me there. He’d saved my life. He’d saved my relationship with Galantia.
He had savedus.
“I know.” I let the letter disappear back into the wooden box in one of the desk drawers, then gave a tug on the high collar of my black, tailored jacket, the buttons simple, the shadowcloth holding no embroidery for once—like I’d requested. “I just wish he could be here today.”
She walked over to me, her gaze going to the specks of purple and pink beyond the window before she lowered herself onto my lap, the train of her gown eating up space. “The first stars are already glinting on the dusky sky. He was never one to turn down fun, so I’m sure he’ll be watching.”
I observed the upturn of her lips, the quivering muscles that she ordered to sustain it. The moment she’d heard Sebian’s heart stop, she’d grown hysteric, crying and clinging to him, shouting assurances of love, begging him to come back. Until she’d burst into her crying unkindness.
But after the letter?
