“Did you find it?”
“I did. But I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I worried my family and friends. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to help.”
“That’s a lot of sorry.”
“I have more if you need it.”
Studying her face, he shrugged. “That might be enough.”
And in two strides, grabbed her, dragged her in, took what he really needed.
“Oh, thank the goddess,” she murmured and locked herself around him. “Come with me. Will you come with me?”
Without waiting for an answer, she flashed.
The light shimmered, pale green with the sparkling blink of pixies dancing. A pond spread, pure, clear as glass, with moonlight filtering through trees to spill across it. Mists, thin fingers of silver, rose from the water. The air, warm and sweet, held still.
“It’s your faerie glade.”
“It’s where I was before I came back. Right before I— I’ll explain later.” Her fingers dived into his hair. “Can we just talk after?”
Since he wanted her naked, he swept his hands over her, left her clothes, her sword, in a jumbled pile with his before dragging her down to the carpet of grass.
This first, he thought, body to body, skin to skin. This first.
“Touch me.” Her hands ran over him as she murmured against his mouth. “Bring me back to you. Come back to me.”
Light sparked as they came together, over flesh, under it. She felt it pour inside her, fill all the spaces she’d emptied out. She’d turned from him to find resolve, and now, turning back to him, found love.
And pleasure. The beat of his heart, the strength of his hands, the shape of him, the taste.
Here, with him, she could yield, or demand. Abdicate control or take. Here, with him, she could feel all the joy she’d lost.
He gripped her hands to slow them, to slow his own. Looked down at her, at the moonlight mirrored back in her eyes. When he took her mouth again, he stripped off all barriers and let his heart pour into the kiss.
You’re my light.
She melted under him, let her heart pour into his.
And you’re my light.
They rose up, joined, cushioned on the sweet air, bathed in the soft, green light, with their own, united, shimmering like the stars.
When, once more, they lay together on the carpet of grass, their light quieted to a glow, she pressed a kiss to his heart. “I’m forgiven?”
“Probably.” He trailed a finger down her spine, up again. “I wasn’t mad. Well, off and on. I was worried, everybody was. Where did you go?”
“Everywhere.” Now she rested her head on his heart. “At first I just needed to be alone, to be gone. The grief, it was so huge, and still only part of it. There’s so much empty in the world, Duncan. It’s not hard to find places to be alone. I’ve known what would be asked of me all my life, and I carried that. I’ve carried more since I turned thirteen. So I told myself everybody else would just have to handle it all for a while because I couldn’t. And I knew you would. You, my parents, my brothers, Tonia, Arlys, Jonah, everyone. I knew you would. If it was selfish, well, the gods would just have to deal with that. Because I couldn’t lead troops into battle when my heart was bleeding or ask anyone to follow me when I couldn’t see where to go.”
She pushed herself to sitting, looked through the mists rising over the pond. “When I saw what you’d done, the memorial you’d created, everything in me shook. I couldn’t say all I wanted to say to you, or I’d have fallen completely apart. Then, the tree over where Mick fell. I wanted to feel comfort from it, but I didn’t. It was anger, and the anger, the hunger for revenge blocked everything. I wanted to bring the lightning and burn that tree to the ground.”
She paused, trailed her fingers over the cuff she wore, fashioned from another tree she’d destroyed with temper.
“I wanted to leave everything and hunt Petra, only Petra, until I could cut her to pieces with my sword. A sword of light and justice. How could I stay? How could I lead?”
“You could have told me.”
“I couldn’t. I couldn’t even tell myself. I could only feel grief, anger, despair. Why, when I’ve done what they asked, when I’ve done all I know how to do, do they demand such payments? Max to Mick, with so many between. Why, why, why? How could I be the light when I couldn’t feel or find it?”
She looked over at him when he sat up with her. “It wasn’t just who Mick was to me, or what he was to me, how much I loved him. Though, God, as much as I did, it’s not what I feel for you. What if it had been you?”
“It wasn’t.”
She shook her head. “But that question kept circling in my head. You, or my parents. Colin lost his arm—what if he lost his life? Travis, Ethan, Tonia, Hannah, Mallick, so many I love. What if one of you is the next payment?”
“I’d say you can’t think that way, but you already knew that.” He didn’t have to like it, he decided, to begin to understand it. “And that’s why you left.”
“It’s a big part of it. What grew in the grief, the doubts was worse. That hunger, that thirst to destroy what destroyed. Eric and Allegra killed Max because they wanted to kill me, inside my mother. They came back because they wanted to kill me, and destroy everything, everyone in New Hope. Petra killed to hurt you, and for the joy of it. And Mick.”
She shut her eyes a moment. “She killed him to strike at me. I think, I feel, if we’d lost him in battle, I could have taken it. Grieved, yes, but it wouldn’t have shaken me to the core. But she chose the moment of victory. She chose to strike him down in his moment of joy. In a moment the two of us shared. It took me some time to understand that, to get through that hunger and understand.”
“She won’t win, Fallon.”
“I know it, but I didn’t know it then. I stopped believing in what we are. I went to mountaintops and deserts, to forests and to cities even the ghosts have abandoned, and wondered why we bother. Didn’t people just find another reason to kill, or scar the land? Hadn’t they driven magicks away out of fear?”
He tugged the ends of her hair. “That was some excellent wallowing you did there.”
“It really was.” She tipped her head to his shoulder. “But I started to see beauty again. The way the sun strikes the water in a stream or a bridge spans a river. I went to the mountains where Allegra and Eric attacked Max and my mother, Poe and Kim. The house is gone, but the land is beautiful, and there were signs of people working it, finding shelter, making lives.
“Why that mattered so much, why it started to open me again, I don’t know. But it did. So I started to look for more of that. Resilience, faith, effort, caring. And I found it. There are a lot of empty places, Duncan, but there’s land being tended, homes tended, families becoming. There’s still strength and courage, and there’s still joy. I just had to look to see it again. I nearly came back then, but I knew I wasn’t finished. I wasn’t finished because I couldn’t make myself come here, where Mick’s everywhere. I went to Wales instead.”
“Mallick.”
“It didn’t begin with him, but so much of what I am came from him. He never wavers. His faith had to have been tested countless times, but he never wavers. I wanted to see where he was born, where he walked as a boy, what he saw.”