Chapter 47
Hacking. Tearing. Gouging.
That’s how she spent almost every waking moment.
Lost in the dark, shored up by Hedda and Nyri, some combination of Magnus, Thaddeus, Faldir, Baldrir, or Vann hovering nearby.
Only her conditioning and training with Hedda—which the Demon Commander insisted upon each day before starting, and was conducted right in the middle of her chamber—was free of pain or thought.
Weeping. Grieving. Breaking.
That’s how she spent every other moment.
Brand never said a word to her. Never pried. Never demanded they talk or begged for answers. Just tended to her fragmented body, fed her, and put her to bed.
Last night, there’d been no such thing as resisting anymore. She hadn’t seen him since Argoph, and feeling him hadn’t been enough anymore. Cracking open one eye as he’d walked away, taking him in…
She’d nearly given up right then and been the one begging.
He’d looked worn and ragged, his face drawn. Worse than when they’d thought Faldir dead. Worse than when he’d held Hedda afterwards and they’d trudged across Thodelebor with the terrible knowledge.
Lunara had a feeling that she didn’t look much better. The only benefit was that she’d ignored the other part of herself so thoroughly that it had gone quiet the last few days, too tired and too fed up to bother with it.
Once more, she climbed from the bed without disturbing Hedda and Nyri, going directly for the tray she knew would be waiting. Her one connection to him. Where she could just be for a moment, and pretend he was right there with her.
By now, she knew that there were at least two others in Fern’s side of their joined chambers, and that she had to be quiet if she wanted to keep her peace.
That first morning, Magnus had heard her sobbing and come over to investigate.
Thad, the next. She’d learned her lesson where Wolflord hearing was concerned.
It was silent tears or nothing from there on out.
Tiptoeing, she rounded the settee and—
Next to the tray was a long, beribboned box made of stiffened parchment.
Her eyes darted between it and the tray, and her curiosity won out. Slipping the silk bow free, Lunara lifted the lid and gasped.
She didn’t know fabric could look as if someone had harnessed the night sky and then dipped it into the sea, just to leave the stars there. When she picked up a corner, the color shifted, glittering from azure to evergreen.
It was a wonder she had any more tears to shed.
With trembling hands, she lifted the dress and hugged it to herself, almost missing the small bundle of papers that fluttered to the ground.
Separate little notes, individually folded. Collecting each one, she laid them out on the table, terrified of what she would find and unable to decide how to open them.
Eventually, Lunara closed her eyes and pointed, picking that one up first. She barely choked back the laugh that threatened to burst free when she saw the contents.
Brand’s handwriting was terrible.
She could hardly make out what he’d written, only deciphering the message after a comical amount of squinting and head tilting.
That the summer sky and the evening forest
could meet beneath eyes of the sea.
Turns out, little moon, that you are my favorite color.
—B
“Oh, Brand,” she whispered, sending the note to the ether where it would always be safe.
The reminder of their sunset on the mountaintop, the first real time she’d spent with him, threatened to topple some of her rigid resolve.
The next was on strange parchment, and not from Brand. The words were sharp and tidy, in a hand she didn’t recognize, and the unsigned note stilled the blood in her veins.
The world went dark and swam beneath you, but you forgot to remember.
Ringing started in her ears, her breaths shallow.
She tossed it away as if it had burned her.
The Voice’s words, rephrased and written out before her.
At the very least, it was an odd sort of relief.
If someone else knew what it had said, then the Voice was real and not a figment of her addled mind.
But how the mysterious sender knew… What they were implying… It was too much to try and figure out. Too much to try and decipher. She still didn’t understand the warning, and she was exhausted in ways she hadn’t known were possible.
Ignoring it was easy. Sort of.
The remaining note almost made her want to go back to the one before.
I know you are hurting, because I am in agony. I know you think your only choice is to disappear. I have realized, over and over, that I am unable to deny you anything. I can’t control you. I can’t hold tight when you beg me to let go. And I especially can’t withhold your freedom.
Even if it destroys us both.
Just know this:
There has been no greater honor in my life than loving you, Lunara. You will be the last I kiss. You will be the last I hold—one way or another. If both of those moments have already come to pass, I will still count myself the most blessed creature alive.
And when I exhale for that final, endless time…
No matter how far away from me you are…
Know the last breath I shared was yours as well, and that I rejoiced in the privilege.
I hope you will reconsider. I hope, with every fiber of my being, that I will come down from the mountaintop as Solyrian blesses the land and you will be there wrapped in a sea of stars. That I will once again know the simple bliss of your hand in mine.
Willingly. Happily.
Irrevocably.
The rest, we can figure out together.
And I hope you know, even if you don’t, that I will never stop loving you anyway.
—B
Lunara stared into the middle space, the parchment clutched in her trembling hand. Shoddy calligraphy or no, Brand’s way with words wrecked her every time. Spoke to a broken piece of her with perfect eloquence, adding a stitch to mend the damage with every earnest syllable.
The Sisters had made him for her, knowing what she was. Could she really throw their gift away? Was she really so arrogant that she would insist on knowing better than them?
“What will you do?”
She jolted, and found Magnus perched on a chair arm, staring at the letter in her hand.
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “I just… don’t know.”
“Well, not to put any added pressure on you, but the Occurrence is tomorrow.” He scrubbed both hands down his tired face, folding them in front of his mouth as he sighed.
“My brother is more broken than I’ve ever seen him, which is saying something.
He hasn’t been able to leave the rage since Argoph.
And you...” He huffed, one corner of his mouth quirking upwards.
“Shite, I think you might be doing worse. Do you even realize the only food you’ve eaten in about five days is the berries he leaves for you? ”
Her eyes went to the bowl beside her, waiting patiently for her to fall upon it as if starving.
She was, too. Starving. But not for food.
“I thought I was made of sturdier stuff than this.” She picked up a strawberry, turning it in the low light. “Fifty-two years on my own, and I can’t make it a week without him? Even for his own good?”
“Mates aren’t supposed to go without one another at all, Lunara.
And it isn’t good for him. You think you’re rescuing him, but it won’t be Brand you leave behind.
Not my Brand. Not yours. You’ll be leaving a husk.
A walking corpse. I don’t say that to lay on a heap of guilt, but because it’s the Sisters’ honest truth.
It is what it is.” He slipped from the chair arm and down to the floor, wrapping an arm around her.
“It won’t be you walking away, either, and for what? ”
“Because no matter what I do, I will destroy him in the end. I’m the Keeper of Illamiata. A monster. Kill him now, or kill him later. It’s all the same, except one gives him a chance.”
“Ach, I love a bit of drama, but that’s too much even for me.” He gave her a playful shake. “I’m sorry, but I don’t see a stone ‘round your bonny wee neck, witchling. You’re not the Keeper of anything at the moment. Tell me, what’s the shortest a Sorcerit has ever held Illamiata?”
Confused, Lunara looked back, surprised at the answer. “I… I think it was Malachyr.” It didn’t hurt to say his name because nothing could make her feel worse than she already did. “He wasn’t much older than me. He had it maybe thirty years, or so? Why?”
“Sounds to me like, even should the very worst happen, you’d still have more of a life with your true mate than most ever get.”
Sisters, it was so tempting. She hadn’t thought of it like that. Hadn’t considered the possibility of riding it out. Malachyr had been wonderful until he wasn’t. Enough years had passed that she could look back and admit it now.
And maybe… maybe she didn’t have to rely only on herself to be safe.
“Magnus?”
“Aye?”
Excitement bubbled up. “What about a binding oath? I’ve read about them before. The strongest among the Wolflords are able to compel others. You could lock me in a binding oath. Make it so I was unable to hurt anyone.”
He tilted her chin up. “Ah, lass… not for all the riches in the world.”
“But—”
“No. And I’ll show you why. If I may?”
When she nodded, he took her arm and brought it to his mouth as he partially shifted, his teeth turning to fangs. Venom of some sort dripped from their lengths in shimmering green. Without warning, he struck, biting down on her flesh.
The pain was almost immediately replaced by paralysis.
She sat there, trying to breathe as his voice exploded in her mind, mixed with the earthy growl of another entity.
—No harm may come to any other by your hand or power, Lunara the Moonweaver, ’til the last of your days. By the Sisters, I so bind you—
He released her as the last word echoed, a hazy lock settling in around her. She felt it, sinking deeper and deeper until it melted in, just another part of her very being. The marks he’d left behind healed before her eyes, as if to seal the magic in.