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With my face tucked into the space between his chest and chin, I sobbed, letting go of all of my loathing, and crossing the fine line that lay between it and the love I felt with equal measure. I didn’t stop until my throat was raw and my eyes were dried out. Even then, my lungs heaved and ballooned until I was drained. I forced myself from his arms and hugged my knees back to my chest. Neither of us spoke. Another eternity passed before Kalen stood from the bed.
“What are you doing?” I mumbled through my clogged nose. Ididn’t like the way Kalen was neatly reassembling my pillows as if I was going to leave my bed anytime soon.
“Come on, I want to show you something.” He held out his hand. I smacked it away.
“No, just let me stay here forever.”
“Trust me. Please. Just trust me.”
Please. He so rarely said that word, and I think that’s why I grabbed his hand without further question. We crept out of my room on our toes, noiselessly stalking through the hall out toward the terrace. When we reached the railing, I began to grow nervous. Kalen had neither confirmed nor denied the fact that he was terrified of me and though I didn’t think he would outright toss me over the side of the palace walls, it was probably the most opportune time to do so.
“Gwyn,” Kalen spoke up from beside me, his brow at a disapproving slant. “After all we’ve been through together, I hope I’d be a little more creative than that.”
I laughed nervously and made a mental note to keep my thoughts in check.
“Now...” Kalen pulled me in front of him so that he was holding me in his arms again, his chin resting on the crown of my head. All that anxious energy buzzing around in every limb quieted. A warm glow conjured from Kalen’s skin and spread to mine. I squeaked in surprise. Kalen’s chest shook with a burst of silent laughter before he leaned us back ever so slightly, tilting our view to the sky. “Look up.”
If I had been sure that Ione wouldn’t send the sea to sweep me away, I would have flung myself over the siding to the packed sand beneath us. Just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.
“No!” I cried, turning around in his grip and smacking him in the chest.
He let me go, and I sprinted to the right of the railing as if I could get any closer to the glittering stars that hung above us. Asif I could reach out and wade my hand through the bright hues of orange and blue and green that had haunted my dreams each night.
Above us, between the Guiding Star and the Wane, was the Auriel.
“How?” I cried, staring back at him with wide eyes. But I didn’t even need to ask. I knew, somehow, I knew that it was him after all of this time. It was always him. Still, I croaked, “You?”
Kalen nodded, just the barest dip of his chin as he focused on the show of Light above us. Softly he said, “I waited for you to return, Gwyn. I barely slept, I barely ate. For two years, I sat in the war room and tossed that damned stone in my hands. I didn’t know that you were in exile, that you were never meant to come back.”
I stilled, my hands like ice on the railing as I listened. Exile. I had not been placed into the Binding at all, I had been sent there, without my soul. The immortal murderess that lived in my mind was snide. Grinning. What had she done to deserve that kind of punishment? What had I done?
“I went looking for witches, faeries, anyone who I thought might be able to get you out. I found a box of my mother’s things in Sythe, with a bunch of notes and scribblings. At the top of a page, next to yours, was the name, Ayona Burnwell. I went to her in Cypra, where she was living with Gabriel at the time. She told me there was nothing she could do—at least not right then. The magic she required to retrieve you needed a celestial event that wouldn’t come for nearly a century. I begged her, fell to my knees before her, and begged as I had never done for anything in my entire life. She is the one who taught me how to channel the Light. Against Gabriel’s orders.”
“That’s why Gabriel hates you then? He blames you for her death.”
“He blames me for many things.”
Above us, the Auriel condensed in on itself until it was the smallest ray of Light focused on the Guiding Star.
“Ten years after I could control the Light,” Kalen continued, “we found the Binding”
I looked at the largest jewel in the velvet night above us. So much time had passed since I last needed its direction. Nowadays, Kalen was the Light that took me places, and indeed the star seemed dimmer as I squinted up at it.
“By that time, you had been gone for so long. I was immortal just like I had wanted. But I’d never wished for that life without you.”
I thought of the dagger and Kalen’s face when he realized I would never Yield him. That I would let him continue loving me unrequited, in hopes that one day it would turn into hatred. Tears were threatening to carve out rivers on my cheeks. How could I tell him what he meant to me when up until a few hours ago I hadn’t even known myself?
“You used to look at me, Gwyn, like you wished I had never loved you. Like it was a burden on your heart that I did, and some days, when I was so lonely, I begged the Mother to let me stop.” Kalen turned his face from the sky, and the Auriel vanished. “Seventy years. You cannot imagine how long that is.”
I pried my eyes away from the empty sky just long enough to see the silver lining his eyes. I felt mine well up, knowing that he was right. I couldn’t imagine it, though I was starting to understand the loss between us.
“Each decade that passed changed me,” he continued. “I grew older and wiser and more afraid of what this all meant. By the time I reached you, I had no idea what would be left of the girl I once knew. When I finally got you home safe, you asked me where you were, what your name was...”
Kalen swallowed, knotting his fingers through his hair, and then he blew out a stiff breath.
“You were right. I was terrified. So, I lied. And I told you the smallest Truths until I found a way to lie again. Over and over and over. Because I was not Kal, your best friend and the boy who loved you for seventy years without seeing your face. I was the Preserver, and our people were dying. I needed you to get the Light back, no matter the cost. Even if that meant you would never know me again.”
Above, the Auriel shimmered, for me, I realized. Everything he had done was for me and for Leoth. Every night, every day, I watched these stars and prayed that they were watching back. Prayed that I was not truly alone. Reaching my hand across the banister, I moved to Kalen’s side.
