Chapter 24 Eoin
EOIN
Her touch lingers on my skin, a phantom warmth that defies the growing cold of the dead cavern. As she drifts back to sleep, Lyren nestled beside her, the full weight of my choice settles upon me.
It is not a thought, but a physical sensation.
A hollowing. I feel the psychic backlash from corrupting the Wildspont, a profound and absolute silence where a connection to my people’s future used to be.
For centuries, the hunt for the cure has been a silent, driving imperative in the back of my mind, a subconscious link to the survival of my race.
Now, that link is severed. The silence it leaves is deafening.
I watch them sleep in the faint, flickering light of the fire.
The equation I have just solved plays over and over in my mind.
On one side: millennia of Vrakken existence, the faces of friends lost to The Fading, the future of an entire species.
On the other: this one human female and the child she bore me.
I have damned my race for them. By every metric of logic, the choice is insane.
As I look at the fierce, protective way her arm is thrown over our son, at the silver of his hair mixed with the dark silk of hers, the choice feels undeniably, irrevocably… correct. Not logical. Not rational. But the only choice my soul would allow.
Lyren stirs, a small whimper escaping his lips. His face is tight with the memory of a nightmare—the battle, the flight, the terror.
Before, I would have remained still, observing the specimen’s distress as a clinical curiosity. I do not do that now.
I move to his side, my movements silent.
I do not know the human art of comfort, the soft words or gentle lullabies.
I know only the Vrakken instinct to shelter.
I kneel and extend my wing, the vast, leathery expanse of it unfolding to create a small, warm cave of darkness around him, shielding him from the dying light of the fire and the cold ghosts of the cavern.
Beneath my wing, his whimpering ceases. His breathing evens out.
He settles into a deep, peaceful sleep, secure in the shelter of his father.
The fierce, primal protectiveness that floods my being is a feeling more potent than any power I have ever wielded.
It solidifies my decision with a finality that leaves no room for regret.
When the first, pale light of dawn filters through the curtain of the waterfall, I know what I must do. They are weak. They need sustenance. This is my new mission. Not a grand, sweeping objective from a Matriarch, but a simple, tangible purpose.
I slide from the cave, my wings catching the air as I fly through the waterfall and into the crisp morning.
I spend hours foraging, my ancient knowledge of the wild, long dormant, now rising to the surface.
I find a clean, cold spring bubbling up from between two rocks.
I gather sweet, nutty-tasting roots and a patch of crisp, edible moss.
It is a simple, humble act of providing, but as I hold the cool, damp moss in my hand, I realize it feels more meaningful than any mission I ever completed.
More real than any cold, logical victory.
When I return, Elza is awake. She sits by the fire, sharpening her dagger on a flat stone, the rhythmic scrape-scrape-scrape a familiar, defiant sound.
She looks up as I enter, her eyes immediately going to the provisions in my hands, then to my face.
The wariness is still there, but the raw hatred has been replaced by a deep, troubled confusion.
“You were gone,” she says, her voice flat, the words an accusation and a question all in one. The fear of abandonment, I realize, is a wound that runs deep in her.
“I was securing provisions.” I hold out a waterskin I filled at the spring. Her eyes track the movement, but she does not take it.
She returns her attention to her blade. “You are not my keeper.”
“No. I am not.” The words are a quiet admission, a redrawing of the lines between us. I am no longer her captor. I am… something else. I set the waterskin and the food beside her. “But he needs to eat. And you are depleted.”
She finally stops sharpening the dagger, her gaze distant. “What now, Eoin?” she asks, her voice barely a whisper. “We are fugitives. Your people will hunt us to the ends of the world.”
“Yes,” I say, offering no false comfort. “They will.”
“And what do we do when they find us? We cannot fight an army.”
I look at her, at the strength in the set of her jaw, the resilience that has allowed her to survive this long. “We will not let them find us. And if they do…” I pause, my gaze unwavering. “I will kill any who come near you.”
It is not a boast. It is a promise. An absolute, unbreakable vow. She hears the truth of it in my voice, and I see a flicker of it in her eyes—not trust, not yet, but a grudging acceptance of our new reality. She gives a single, sharp nod and begins to prepare the food.
Later, as night falls again, she and Lyren fall into an exhausted sleep. I cannot rest. The weight of my choice, the threat of the Matriarch, the new, fragile life I am now responsible for—they are a burden I must carry alone.
I walk to the opening of the cave, the roar of the waterfall a constant, thundering presence. I stand there, a silent sentinel, my back to the two people who have become the center of my universe, and I watch the darkness.
Sometime in the dead of night, I feel her stir. I do not turn. I feel her gaze on my back, a tentative, questioning touch.
I know the sheer breadth of my wings seems not threatening, but like a shield to her.