39. Ilyra
ILYRA
The chill nips at my fingertips as I work the soil, turning earth that's grown stubborn with approaching winter. My herb garden stretches in neat rows behind the house—chamomile and feverfew, willow bark and elderflower. What started as desperate necessity has become something resembling purpose.
"Clever girl, growing medicine when the Old Henrik moved to Podril Ridge." Mrs. Aldric had said that just yesterday, counting out copper coins for a poultice that eased her husband's joint pain. "Your father would be proud."
The words warmed me more than the payment. Pride, not pity. Respect earned through work, not charity extended to the demon girl who disrupted a wedding.
I pull another weed from around the comfrey roots, marveling at how the settlement's narrative shifted so neatly.
The demon appeared because of dark elf corruption—everyone agrees on that now.
Bram and his guards fled like the cowards they were, taking their tainted influence with them.
Good riddance to bad blood, as old Henrik puts it.
They don't know I summoned Azrathiel. They see his intervention as divine justice, not infernal contract. The irony tastes bitter some days, sweet others.
The wind picks up, rattling the dried stalks I've left standing for seed collection. Winter approaches with teeth bared—I can smell it in the air, sharp and clean. Soon I'll need to harvest the last of the hardy roots, bundle the final herbs for drying.
My hands work automatically, muscle memory guiding the harvest while my mind drifts. It always drifts to him as twilight approaches. During daylight hours I can maintain focus, lose myself in the rhythm of work and trade. But when shadows lengthen and the house grows quiet, the echo starts.
It's subtle—a warmth that shouldn't exist, a presence that flickers at the edge of perception. Sometimes I catch myself turning toward empty corners, expecting to find gold-flecked eyes watching from the darkness. Sometimes I wake reaching for warmth that isn't there.
The contract thread still pulses between us, faint but unbroken. Ten months remaining until collection. Ten months of this strange half-life, neither fully alone nor truly accompanied.
I straighten, brushing soil from my skirt, and survey the evening's work. Three baskets full of late-season herbs, enough to keep the settlement's minor ailments at bay through the cold months ahead. Honest work. Necessary work.
The kind my father would approve of.
"Practical girl," I murmur to the gathering dusk, using his voice. "Always thinking ahead."
But even as I gather the baskets, even as I plan tomorrow's preparations, the echo pulses stronger. Like a heartbeat that isn't mine, like breath held too long in empty rooms.
Somewhere in shadow and flame, he thinks of me.
And despite everything—despite the choice I made to let him go, despite the life I'm building without him—I think of him too.
That's why I nearly believe it's hallucination when I turn around and see Azrathiel standing in my garden.
The twilight plays tricks—shadows stretching long between the herb rows, making shapes that shouldn't exist. But the way he stands perfectly still among my carefully tended plants, the way starlight catches the ember-veins beneath his skin, the way those gold-flecked eyes find mine with unerring precision—
This is no trick of tired eyes.
"Ilyra."
My name falls from his lips like a prayer answered, and the basket slips from nerveless fingers. Lavender and chamomile scatter across the pebbled path, purple blooms and white petals mixing with darker earth.
"You're here." The words escape as barely more than breath.
He steps forward slowly, each movement deliberate as if approaching something fragile. His boots crush the spilled herbs, releasing their scent into the cooling air—sweet lavender, bitter chamomile, the green smell of broken stems.
"The connection remains." His voice carries that familiar weight, controlled but strained at the edges. "Despite the contract being complete."
I should step back. Should demand answers. Should ask why he's violated the terms of our agreement, why he's returned when the debt was settled and the bond released.
Instead, I drink in the sight of him. The way shadows cling to his frame like living things. The faint glow of celestial chains across his shoulders, dimmer than before but still present. The careful distance he maintains, as if afraid I'll bolt.
"I cannot sever it." The admission costs him something—I hear it in the slight roughening of his tone. "I have tried."
"Maybe I never released you." The truth spills out. "In my heart, I mean."
He shakes his head, a sharp denial that sends dark hair shifting across his shoulders. "There's more than some contract here, flower."
The endearment is sweet and aching. How many nights have I replayed that word in his voice? How many times have I caught myself listening for footsteps that never come?
"I believe it's fate."
The declaration hangs between us, stark and impossible. Fate—such a mortal concept, such a fragile thing to pin hopes upon. Yet the way he says it, with the certainty of one who has presided over infernal courts and witnessed the unbreakable weight of cosmic law—
"Fate." I taste the word, find it strange on my tongue. "You don't seem the type to believe in such things."
"I didn't." His gaze never wavers from mine. "Until you."
"I never wanted you to leave."
The confession slips out raw and unguarded, carried on the cooling evening air between us. His stillness sharpens, every line of his imposing frame going taut as bowstring.
"Then why—" He stops himself, jaw working as if the words taste bitter. "Why did you never say so?"
I can't meet those gold-flecked eyes. Can't bear the intensity burning there while my own truth sits so exposed between us. Instead, I bend down and begin gathering the scattered herbs with deliberate care. Lavender stems between my fingers, chamomile heads crushed but still fragrant.
"Why didn't you stop me?" The questions keep coming, each one sharper than the last. "Why did you never call me to return?"
A laugh escapes me—short, hollow, lacking any real humor. "I already told you that I chose you." I straighten with an armful of salvaged blooms, finally meeting his gaze. "I wanted you to choose me this time. But you left anyway."
Something flickers across his features. Surprise, perhaps. Or recognition.
"You made your decision clear enough." I turn away, focusing on the remaining herbs scattered across the path. "Duty fulfilled, contract complete. Back to your realm of shadow and flame."
"Ilyra—"
"I never called for you because I feared it would be too painful." The words tumble out faster now, carried by momentum I can't stop. "For you to see me knowing that one day..."
The sentence dies unfinished, hanging in the space between us like smoke. I clutch the gathered herbs tighter, their stems leaving green stains across my palms.
He moves closer—not touching, but near enough that I feel the warmth radiating from his skin. Near enough to catch the faint scent of sulfur and starlight that clings to him always.
"Knowing what?" His voice drops lower, gentler. "What did you think would be too painful?"
I shake my head, unable to voice the rest. Unable to say that watching him visit out of obligation rather than desire would have broken something inside me I couldn't afford to lose. That calling his name would have felt like begging, and I'd already sacrificed enough of my pride.
"That watching me would hurt when you'd eventually have to collect your price."
The admission hangs between us, stark and final. In the growing darkness, his ember-veins pulse brighter, casting faint light across the herb garden we stand in.