Chapter 42
Forty-Two
Adelasia
The night is quiet when Rowan finds me, pacing alone on the balcony outside our chamber.
I don’t hear him approach, but I feel him. That subtle shift in the air, the whisper of heat and energy that comes before Rowan speaks.
“You’re pacing patterns into the stone.”
His voice is soft, uncharacteristically careful.
“I can’t stop thinking,” I murmur without looking up. “About the Well. About…us. About how this doesn’t feel over yet.”
The word hangs between us, heavier than I intend, and I finally lift my gaze. Rowan leans against the carved pillar, arms folded. The starlight spills across his cheekbones.
“You’re afraid,” he says simply.
“I’m—” I stop, pressing a palm against my sternum as if I can hold the tremor in my chest at bay.
“I can feel her. Eternity. I can feel her rage inside me, like I’ve swallowed her whole and she’ll claw through my insides to get out.
I can’t live like this. I want it out, but I can’t lose you both again, I won’t survive.
And what if I break what little we have to hold onto? ”
“You think you’re breaking something between us,” he says. “But the truth, Adelasia, is that you’re the only thing holding us together. If you feel that something isn’t right, then we trust you.”
My breath catches. The air between us tightens, charged and fragile. I feel him everywhere—in the weight of the silence, in the hum beneath my skin, in the way my magic stirs as though it recognizes him.
And then a voice behind us breaks the moment.
Kaius stands in the doorway, leaning against the frame, crimson eyes half-shadowed but sharp and burning. “Yes, we do.”
I turn to him, breath catching, and something in his expression softens when our eyes meet. “Whatever Eternity has left for us,” he says, stepping forward, “we end it. Together.”