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“Because any Shadow,” he finished, “no matter how absolute, means that the Light persists. Somewhere, it goes on. You, go on. And that is well enough.”
But it was not well enough for me. Not yet, and not when the feeling of my sister’s dead body ached atop my arms as if I was still holding her there. How could I go on? How could I endure the pain that she left with me, the pain that lingered where my heart met my soul?
“I feel her sometimes,” I admitted, still staring at the wall.
“And you will continue to feel her. She lives within you. Not just her power, but the memory of what she did to you. What you did to her,” Kalen said bluntly.
“What we both did to you.”
“Yes.”
Kalen slumped a little beside me. I felt sorry for reminding him, but I had to. He couldn’t forget that I had been just as culpable in his death as my sister. He couldn’t forget that I was a god and a dangerous one. Not as long as these powers gripped me.
“Gwyn, I want to tell you that it will be better, but you’ll know I’m lying.”
I leaned my aching head on his bare shoulder. His skin was warm against the side of my face. He was always so warm. “Yeah, I will,” I sighed.
“Will you promise me something,” he whispered, “if I swear by you in return?”
“You haven’t been off duty long enough to be handing out fealties, Kal.”
He chuckled, then said seriously, “Gwyn.”
I didn’t reply. Instead, I nuzzled my cheek further into thehook of his shoulder. “I want you to promise me,” he said. “Promise me that you will bear it. No matter how heavy this feeling, you will bear the weight of it. And I promise, in return, to stay here with you, just as we are. With your head on my shoulder, and my sword drawn at my side, until you know that you are the only thing you will ever need.”
I lifted myself from him, tucking my power safely away as I pulled his arms around my waist. “I will always need you,” I said, “even when I don’t.”
We looked at each other for a moment, the Truth flowing back and forth between our eyes, both lined in silver and glowing brightly. My breath caught in my throat. I was so lucky. So very lucky to be looking at him, to be holding him in these hands that had done so many horrible things. Lucky, that even though the two of us had been through so much, there was something about Kalen and I that would never change. We would never stop saving each other, even if it cost us.
Kalen rested his forehead against mine. I reached up on my toes to kiss him, but he pulled back, saying, “Well I hope you’ll still need me, or else I am going to be out of a job.”
I snorted. “Gabriel would hire you. Maybe even turn you into an Astralite.”
Kalen made a face. “Just what I need. One too-long glance from the saiche and Abdiel would gut me like a fish.”
“Is that why you’ve always refused my offers to train in Cypra?”
“I’m starting to miss half-minded Gwyn,” he said, rubbing the sting on his backside from where I’d just pinched him. “She was much easier to fool.”
“And much easier to keep occupied in the bedroom,” I joked, winking over my shoulder as I sprinted for the door.
Kalen gaped, chasing after me and wrapping his arms tight around my torso as I squealed.
“Had you not snuck out on me,” he said, turning me to face him, “I would have loved to occupy you, Oh Beloved and Faithful Preserver.”
I hummed into his chest as he snaked an arm around my leg and pressed me into the door. His other hand ran flat around my waist, reaching for something. He nipped at my ear, his hot breath pouring down my neck as he breathed, “Later.”
Before I knew it, I was knocked sideways onto the floor, the tender morning light spewing into the room as Kalen walked out of it.
“Come on,” he called from the hallway. “We have subjects to appease, and you still need to dress. The sun will be cresting the Well in an hour and Guardians are not the patient kind.”
“Oh, by the Light,” I groaned, jumping up from the floor and into the hallway, dusting off my nightgown before shutting the tearoom door.
Leoth was still inshambles.
It had been months since the attack, but as Gwyn walked down from the upper layers of the Well, she understood why revisions were taking so long.
The tall, perfectly sculpted ochre walls of her home were mutilated; rubble and broken glass littered the hall, deep black tears made for inlays in the stone floor—Melany’s Beerwolv had slashed through the centuries-old bedrock as if they were silken sheets. By her chambers, a whole wall had been knocked down, and though many in her court felt it unsafe, Gwyn insisted on spending at least an hour there each morning, watching the ruin disappear. Piece by piece. Smaller and smaller. Healing, but still scarred, nonetheless.
