Chapter 8
Lore
She could have asked me for a blade, an army, the moon, and I would’ve died to obtain them for her. But she gave me what no one else ever had, her wreckage and truth, hoping I’d understand and still love her.
“I will willingly carry your burdens for you for the rest of my days,” I said.
Light burst from the mirror, silver swirling with red and shades of deep, stormy lavender. The veil began to lift, and the jagged terrain softened. The warped buildings straightened.
I wasn’t meant to fix her. That was never the point. I was meant to know her. To stand beside her. To witness every sharp, broken part of this woman I loved, and stay. To choose her, even when she couldn’t choose herself.
The shadows receded, curling back to wherever they’d come from.
A path unrolled in front of me made of smooth stone, and I stepped onto it.
Even if all I found was the shell of the woman who’d once kissed life into my broken pieces, I’d help her. And if I broke apart trying, at least I’d shatter doing something worthy.
The path led me through fog and creeping vines, each step a heartbeat louder in my ears. Up ahead, high against the bruised sky, the crumbling remains of Evergorne Castle rose like a scar torn open. Thorns wrapped the entrance like jagged teeth. The iron gate leaned half-off its hinges.
A figure stepped from the ruin’s mouth. Not Reyla, though it was almost her.
Her shadow-self had the same build and hair, but her eyes were stormy, and her mouth had thinned to a stark line. She blocked the threshold with her arms folded across her chest and her bare feet planted on the stone.
“What do you know of her pain?” she asked, her voice echoing around us. “You think you've earned a way in? Power isn't enough here. Love isn't either.”
The wind shifted, carrying the scent of rotting flowers.
“I’m here for my wife,” I stated with hope in my heart. “Nothing more.”
The shadow didn’t move but a question burned into the air between us. The wind carried it in a whisper through the thorns.
What has she never said aloud, but you know she feels?
Ah, Wildfire. This question wrenched through my heart, leaving me gutted. Bleeding.
“That she’s not enough,” I said quietly.
“Not fast enough or smart enough. Not strong enough. Not enough to save Kinart. Not enough to wear a crown or stand strong for Evergorne or even for me.” I swallowed.
“But she’s wrong. She's always been enough. From the moment she challenged me on the deck of my ship, she has been more than I could ever hope to claim.”
The words left me hollow, scraped raw from a truth that had lived inside me for months. Every time she'd thrown herself into danger, every moment she'd pushed harder than anyone should have to, it was due to the belief that she had to earn her place in the world.
I tightened my hands against my sides. How many nights had she lain awake going through her failures? How many times had she looked in the mirror and seen inadequacy where I only saw everything beautiful and fierce?
The shadow watched me with those storm-dark eyes, weighing my answer on some invisible scale. Measuring whether my love was deep enough to see past the surface, strong enough to hold the weight of her wounds.
Silence stretched between us, and the shadow blinked. One thick, forearm-length thorn retracted, revealing some of the foyer beyond.
Another question came like a crack of lightning.
What lie about herself does she believe?
So many. Too many that had been burned into her skin too long ago for me to soothe them.
“She believes she can’t survive me dying.
” My eyes burned with tears I would not shed.
I was here to save her, and I would not allow my own feelings to stand in the way.
“She thinks if I die from the curse, she'll break. She thinks love makes her fragile. But I’ve seen the core of my wife. I’ve walked through her sorrow, and it’s forged in fire.
She can survive anything. She already has. ”
The lie she carried was so fundamental, so woven into how she saw herself, that she couldn't imagine existing without it. She thought love was weakness because caring had cost her everything before.
What weakness? My wildfire had faced down borgons with nothing but steel and fury. She’d looked her father in the eye when he tried to steal her very essence. She’d loved a cursed man knowing it might destroy her.
The shadow-self tilted her head, and something shifted in those empty eyes. Recognition, maybe. Or surprise that someone had finally seen through the armor Reyla wore so well that even she believed it was her skin.
My chest burned with the need to prove it. To show this manifestation of her fears that every word was carved from absolute truth.
Another thorn hissed, curling away from the opening.
The shadow tilted her head, and the next question hit the hardest.
Why do you still love her, knowing her choices and doubts?
My breath rattled in my lungs.
What if I wasn’t enough?
No, she loved me. I could only stand as strong as I was and let her judge me as worthy or not.
“Because she’s the better half of me,” I said with my whole heart.
“The part that fights when I lose my strength. The flame I’ll follow into darkness without question.
I love her knowing she’ll choose mercy over revenge.
I love her because she could walk away from me, from this, but she doesn’t.
She stays by my side with her teeth bared and the twin daggers I made for her in her hands.
If she can stay despite the wreck of my world, despite the curse, I’ll stay too. ”
This wasn't just about loving her despite her flaws. This was about loving her because of who she was in her entirety. The woman who chose mercy when vengeance would be easier. Who stayed when leaving would be safer.
My throat closed. Standing here, speaking these truths to a shadow-version of the woman who owned my soul, felt like I was laying my heart on a sacrificial altar.
But if this was what it took to reach her, to prove that my love wasn't conditional on her being perfect or unbroken, then let the shadow take every secret I'd ever kept.
The thorns shivered, and I could feel the magic in the air shifting. Testing. Deciding if the man in front of this threshold was worthy of the treasure locked inside.
The rest of the thorns retreated, and the crooked gate groaned open.
Shadow-Reyla blurred, wind slicing through her until she faded into nothing. Only her voice echoed behind her.
You may enter but be warned.
I girded myself, prepared to take on whatever I had to do next.
What waits inside is not a rescue, she said with no inflection in her voice.
That crushed me. This was my love, my wife, not some inanimate thing with no feelings or soul.
There's no saving her unless she’s willing to face herself, she said.
Then so be it. Nothing would stop me from entering, not even knowing I may never emerge from the other side.
With a jerk of a nod, I crossed the twisted arch. Warmth was ripped from my bones. The castle’s heart swallowed it, along with every whisper of hope I hadn’t yet buried.
This wasn't the true Evergorne, but one buried deep inside. There were no windows, no lights, no welcoming laughter. The walls breathed cold and wet and were alive with uncomfortable truths.
At the chamber's center, my wildfire had been bound to a stone wall.
Chains wreathed her, glowing with pure light.
Some were golden, some ink-dark, while others were bright red, blood-coated steel.
Each link held a memory. Her father trying to drain the core of herself she cherished most. Kinart dying in her arms while she blamed herself.
My body lying on the cobblestones, bleeding out, and her unable to do anything to change my fate.
As I stepped inside, my lungs moved, but it was like sucking in wind through oil.
If I lost her to this place, if she dissolved behind those chains before I could reach her, there would be no one left to come back for.
I could taste that truth on my tongue. If she died, I would follow, and I accepted that.
Reyla's gaze met mine. “I'm sorry.” Her head drooped, and a tangle of her hair caught on one of the links.
Her words, so lost and dejected, gutted me.
“I failed you,” she said. “I should’ve done more.”
Never, Wildfire. Never.
I hated the finality in her words, as if she’d already decided I was worth more than she was.
She wasn’t only tired and sad. She was empty.
My bones fractured, and I wanted to scream her name loud enough to stitch her back together.
But the sound stayed trapped in that tender part of me where hope used to thrive.
I could not save her. She had to save herself.
The chains bristled when I approached. Lashing out, one caught my arm, drawing blood, before whipping back to coil tighter around her.
When she winced, it was all I could do not to drop to my knees and tip my head back and scream.
“Don’t,” I snarled, looking for something to rip apart. “Do not hurt her.”
More shackles jutted up from the stone at my feet, and I could swear the room vibrated with my anger.
I summoned everything, flame, will, all the power I possessed. Magic crackled down my arms, and I sent it at her bindings. Instead of breaking, the chains coiled tighter, encircling her body in a closing fist.
I was hurting her. Me. Again.
My strength, the thing I’d once thought would always save her, curled around her throat in a noose. And deep inside, I felt her slipping, the thread between us stretching so fine I could no longer tell if it was fraying or breaking.
“I have to stop,” I snarled. “It’s pulling from me.”
Magic fizzled in my hands. Force would not win this.