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Maybe, maybe not.
It was hard to remember, considering we only bothered flying up to Vhaerya… what? Once a year? Nothing but wasted time. I had not seen the temple or even its roof in a decade, all of Valtaris sleeping beneath shadows ever so cruel. I would not see it tomorrow.
Snow shifted with a faint crunch behind me, snapping me from my brooding contemplation. I turned just in time to see Galantia emerge from between the trees, her slender frame wrapped haphazardly in a blanket. She came to an abrupt stop when our eyes met, the shadows of the moonlight illuminating her dread, maybe even fear.
It shamed me.
It aroused me.
I turned to face her fully, and that alone caused one of her feet to shift back ever so slightly. “What are you doing out here?"
“I… I need to relieve myself, and nobody seemed to be in this area.”
I let my thumb trace over the blood-damp silk of the bracelet. Why had I made it? To hand it to her and say,I’m sorry for raping you while I tried to force our bond, so here is a courting gift for you?
I scoffed.
Fuck, I was pathetic.
“We avoid the river,” I said. “The water is polluted with shadows.”
Her gaze wandered upstream as she thought for a moment. “Washing in from Valtaris.”
Muscles I barely used twitched along my cheeks, too atrophied to form all the way into a smile. Of all the things enticing about Galantia—be it her resilience, her kindness, or her curiosity—it was her keen mind that I liked best.
She was smart.
Smart enough to reject me.
I turned back toward the river and shoved the bracelet into the fold of my tunic. It was bloodied now anyway. Ruined, just like my chances to ever bond with her, and was that not a good thing? A righteous thing? A kind thing? To relinquish my claim on her like I had said I would, so she might find happiness in life where all I could offer was darkness?
“Do not succumb to it.”Mother’s words echoed from the past.
But how could I not have, Mother?It was around me. Inside me. Always with me.
My ears pricked at the way Galantia dared a step toward me. “I’m not sure if my void is deep or strong enough to lift the shadows from your kingdom.”
Oh, but it was.
The day I’d chased her?
I had poured such a vast amount of my shadows into her void. Just like I’d noticed in the orchard, there was no resistance, no barrier—only an open chasm that swallowed it with greed. I hadn’t held back; I’d simply released, exhaled, and then siphoned everything into her without a care.
Until she’d slapped me.
It hadn’t hurt; truthfully, I had barely felt it.
So why had I roughly turned her around? Why had I thrust inside her, fucking her viciously against a ground as cold as the walls of the dungeons where they’d fucked my ass bloody? Why would I do such a thing to my fated mate? The woman I silently loved?
Because I liked things I shouldn’t.
And my shadows liked them more.
“I want to help,” she said after a while. “If this is what can give the Ravens their home back, then I will give it my best try.”
“The Ravens…” I scoffed. “Youarea Raven.”
“I’ve been a Raven for mere weeks, whereas I’ve grown up a human all my life. I’ve lived on both sides, and the war isn’t looking pretty on either one. If this can end the war, then I will do everything it takes to lift those shadows.”
