Epilogue #2
“You should ask her.” Einar was still watching Gwynira pensively. “Sorin hated her, you know. He created and discarded her—Isa, too. The High Court is the closest thing they have to family now. Letting Gwynira claim the place he abandoned feels . . . right.”
Aleksi rested his chin on Naia’s shoulder. “Impossible to argue with that.”
Dianthe lifted a hand to Einar’s cheek, her ancient eyes full of proud affection. “You’ve come a long way from the pirate who sailed to the island the Ice Queen ruled with revenge in his heart.”
“Because, in the end, revenge was empty.” He looked to Aleksi and Naia, open and loving.
Nothing like the traumatized, closed-off man who had once desperately asked Aleksi to peer into his soul.
“Sorin hurt so many people, but now he’s gone.
He stole so much of my past. I won’t let him have a single moment of my future. ”
Naia’s lips curved up in a trembling smile, and she reached out, caught the placket of his vest, and pulled him closer.
Dianthe touched Naia’s cheek, too, and smiled at Aleksi with love as vast as the oceans in her eyes.
“It brings me such joy to see you all so happy,” she said softly, then lifted her wineglass in a toast. “Be well, my loves.” She went to join the others, leaving the three of them standing by the water alone.
Naia raised her free hand to Aleksi’s head. “Have you had a good evening?”
“I always do when my friends visit.” He nipped at her fingers. “But I might enjoy it more after we’ve turned in for the night.”
Einar pressed closer, trapping Naia between their bodies as his lips grazed her temple. “And how soon can we do that?”
“When our guests have gone to bed.” She half turned in Aleksi’s arms until she was facing them both. “I have something to tell you.”
She sounded tense, not with misery but with nerves. In his haste to ease her uncertainty, Aleksi touched her chin. “Are you well?”
“Yes, quite.”
Einar stroked his fingers through her hair in an attempt to soothe her, as well. “Then what is it?”
Instead of answering, she pulled their hands away from her chin and hair and drew them down to rest on her midsection. Einar’s fingers flexed beneath Aleksi’s as his gaze whipped to her untouched wineglass, sitting abandoned on the railing.
Aleksi’s heart thumped, and his mind whirled with so many thoughts that he could not settle on just one. Finally, he managed, “Are you certain? A baby?”
She nodded, then urged him, “Look.”
So Aleksi did. He gazed past the soft curves of Naia’s face, past the wide, dark eyes—anxious and eager, all at once. Past the physical.
Her aura was the same unique color he could always feel, just a little brighter, and tinged with his colors as well as Einar’s, as if the three of them had melded together in soul as well as intent.
Then he realized there was another color, one that blazed so bright it could have lit up the Endless Void.
“Can you feel it?” she asked softly.
“Hope.” The word did not seem vast enough to describe what Aleksi could see.
But Naia exhaled in relief and squeezed his hand. “Yes.”
There had been many people who had manifested the powers of the gods, like Einar. And there had been those like Aleksi and Naia, born directly of the Dream—and, moving forward, presumably from the Void, as well.
There had never been anyone to grow up as both a human and a god.
Einar buried his face in Naia’s hair, and the hand he had pressed to her abdomen trembled. “I want—”
His voice broke, and Aleksi hauled Einar closer. “Our child will be safe,” he whispered. “I promise.” The vow rippled out, stirring the waves of the lake and, farther beyond, the turning leaves of the trees and the vines in the fields.
“I never had that,” Einar rasped. “Petya tried, but so many nights we went to bed hungry, or cold, or so tired our bones hurt.” He stroked a thumb over Naia’s abdomen, his pain slowly giving way to wonder. “This child will know only warmth and love.”
Of course, because that was the nature of hope, wasn’t it?
Aleksi rested his head against Einar’s. “We should tell everyone,” he declared, his voice thick with tears, as well. “And then they absolutely have to get the fuck out of here so we can celebrate properly.”
They both laughed, and Aleksi knew exactly what they were thinking.
The suggestion should have sounded salacious—and perhaps it might become so.
But, for the moment, Aleksi was thinking of a soft rug, a crackling fire .
. . and the three of them, huddled close, making plans until the sun peeked over the horizon.
“As long as you’re happy,” she told them.
Happy was a word that Aleksi had once found useful, sufficient to describe the emotion that often fluttered in his chest. But it was not enough to encompass this emotion.
He reached for his lovers instead. He pulled Naia and Einar close, wrapped them in all the care and tenderness he’d cultivated over thousands of years, and kissed the salt from their lips.
Someday, there would be new words, ones that could capture this elation.
Until then, Aleksi would just have to show them.