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She was an enigma.
I leaned closer, just an inch. She was so short I had to crane my neck, her petite frame trembling as I closed in. Hungry. Desperate for just a taste of the fiery sunshine she reminded me of. A brightness in a world of night.
But then my gaze shifted upward, away from those delectable lips—
Kiara stared up at me with wide, innocent eyes. Trusting eyes.
Trust I didn’t deserve.
My hands fell, releasing her.
I could’ve sworn a look of hurt crossed her features, but I ignored it. I had to.
Not once had I questioned my actions in the past, but ever since she’d come barreling into my life, I’d been tasting shame and bitter remorse. I wasn’t what a woman like her deserved. Not some scarred, heartless monster.
With the moment thoroughly broken, Kiara stumbled back a step. “I-I saw something, right before you, uh, bumped into me.” She jerked her head behind her, an uncharacteristic nervousness lining her words. “I’ll show you.”
I gave a curt nod, my jaw tensing painfully. “Let’s go.”
Spinning around, Kiara took cautious steps into the eddying fog, keeping her gaze ahead, looking anywherebutat me. I saw how she wobbled. How her hands formed loose fists at her sides.
I affected her, maybe just as much as she affected me. It was a disaster waiting to happen. I was about to open my mouth and ask what she thought she’d seen when all the air left my lungs.
Kiara cursed. A foul curse that would have brought a smile to my lips if disbelief hadn’t rendered me speechless.
A clearing.
But not just any clearing. There was no fog, no bone trees with brittle blue leaves.
No. It was a paradise.
“What the fu…” Kiara trailed off, her lips parted as her mouth curved into a wideO.
The brightest colors I’d ever seen—lush greens, vibrant reds, playful yellows—fell across the earth like a painted masterpiece. Better than that. Because it wasreal.
Only in my sunshine dreams had I seen such light.
It wasn’t as bright as those dreams, but the clearing brimming with plants and flowers of varying colors wasglowing.
“Beautiful,” Kiara said, taking in all the foreign splendor.
Instinctively, I reached for the folded map, bringing it before my eyes. There was nothing on it but more trees where the clearing should have been.
“This isn’t on the map,” I said, my voice harder than stone despite how my stomach fluttered.
“Screw your map.” Kiara let loose a lighthearted giggle, bounding fearlessly into the clearing, her fingers trailing across the blooms as she went. I admired that about her—that reckless bravery.
“Wait!” I shouted, the paranoid part of me on edge. There had to be a catch.
But Kiara didn’t listen, twirling like a child among the flowers and greenery, a luminous smile adding to the radiating light enfolding us in its embrace.
I bounded after her—my cheeky sprite— straight into a clearing that was nothing short of impossible.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Kiara
Cerys, the God of Devotion, is often described as nothing more than a dulcet whisper in the night, striking at a time when the mind is at its most malleable. Cerys, a magnificent entity of pure, indescribable beauty and warmth, bestows their blessings upon the luckiest of mortals. A shame, because most of those Cerys visits do not even realize they’ve been given the greatest gift known to mankind.
