CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
The kirkyard was exactly as Evylin had left it.
The gate rattled gently against its latch in the afternoon breeze.
Ivy climbed the white fence, though Father Dover ensured it never grew too wild or invasive.
Midday sunshine highlighted the light gray headstones of all the villagers lost amongst the creeping white and green everbloom ivy.
Evylin knelt next to Ryen’s plot, a peculiar sense of contentment in her heart. She brushed her fingers across the weathered quartz, brushing back the ivy leaves.
“Hello again,” she said with a smile. “Didn’t expect me back so soon, did you?”
She traced his name.
“Neither did I. But I did as I promised—and more.”
The breeze ruffled Evylin’s hair, causing it to trail across her face.
She reached up to push it back. “I’ve seen the sea,” she told Ryen.
“It’s as beautiful as we imagined. It stretches on forever; though I know it ends, I can’t fathom how.
I explored the Shires. I won dozens—well, probably hundreds of duels.
I rescued a prince, which is even better than a princess. I fought a dragon, and I found Mages.”
Evylin paused, her smile turning wry. “I married a Mage.”
The ivory flowers of the everbloom shivered in the wind.
“I know,” Evylin said, amused. “I couldn’t believe it either.
But do you want to know what’s even more amazing?
It turns out that I’m magical too. Have you heard of Warriors?
I hadn’t. But I’m one of them, and together, Jonn and I are Bonded, our magic a perfect balance to help protect and serve Terraeus. ”
Evylin glanced down at her ring, the onyx gemstones glinting in the light. The elegant band represented Deckard and their future—that’s what he’d told her when he gave it to her. He’d chosen this ring with its obsidian black stones because it felt right. And for the first time, Evylin realized why.
Eyes still on the ring, Evylin pulled the Space Relic out from beneath her collar. She compared the two. One setting was gold, the other silver, but their gemstones were identical.
Onyx. The blackness of Space. The infinity of the Heavens.
He’d known. Subconsciously, Deckard had known even then that Space was his resource. He was drawn to it, though he didn’t feel it. It made her wonder how many times he’d connected with the resource without knowing it.
“I was told I’d find you here.”
Deckard’s voice soothed over Evylin, and she turned, greeting him with a dry grin.
She studied her husband, understanding for the first time how deep his magic ran.
It was always within him, always drawing on him.
It was the thing that made his eyes shift green and his temperament unfathomably steady.
“I hope my father wasn’t too unbearable,” she said as he approached, sliding the Relic back beneath her collar. A gentle wash of pleasure swept into her palm from the gold and onyx pendant.
Deckard carefully walked through the kirkyard to kneel beside her. “He’s fine,” he said. “I showed him our orders and explained what I could, and he was quite gratified to learn that he’d married his daughter off to the king’s most valued soldier.”
They shared a sardonic grin. The sunlight caught in Deckard’s hair, making it look redder than usual. He still wore his uniform, the gold braid of a colonel looped around his shoulder. His gaze softened with a somber respect as his eyes turned to the grave marker.
Evylin took his hand, ignoring the hesitation in his returned grip. “Thank you for joining me,” she said as he knelt beside her. “I wanted to introduce you. Silly as that may be.”
He squeezed her hand. “It isn’t silly at all,” he promised.
She returned his gentle smile, and they turned to face the headstone embedded into the terrae.
“Jonn, this is Ryen.” Evylin drew a finger along the edge of the stone. “Ryen, this is my husband, Jonn.”
Deckard bowed his head.
“I always came to visit Ryen when I needed to talk to someone,” Evylin said, feeling the need to explain herself. “Of course, Hewitt was who I went to for advice, but . . . If I just needed someone to listen, Ryen was always there, before and after his death.”
Deckard scooted closer but remained silent.
“I know Hewitt told you about him,” Evylin looked up at him, “but I never did. I should have.”
Deckard shook his head. “You were hurting.”
“You’re my husband. I should have trusted you with it.”
“I never blamed you for it.”
She rested her head on his shoulder. “You’re too forgiving sometimes,” she said softly. “But I love you for it.”
He kissed the top of her head.
“Would you like to hear about him?” she asked, sitting up again. “From me?”
Though she could feel a growing tension in his body from their proximity, Deckard didn’t pull away. “I would,” he said. “Very much.”
So Evylin told him all about Ryen. She told him about their promise to one another, their shared dream of adventure. “I haven’t quite become a legend worth five hundred tales, but I’m not sure I’d like to anyway,” she admitted.
Then she told him about their childhood.
They’d spent whole days fishing by the river, pretending to be pirates, and taking turns reading aloud from their storybooks.
When their mothers forced them to do schoolwork, they would only do it if they were together.
Irena was a second parent to Evylin when her father was gone in the war.
She felt her aunt’s loss, too, but not nearly as keenly as Ryen’s.
Ryen had been her everything.
“He was so clever, so good,” she said. “He always made me feel so safe.”
But then the fire came and took him away.
“I married you because of him,” Evylin confessed at last. “If it weren’t for my promise to Ryen—that I wouldn’t let our dream die—I would never have agreed so soon.”
“I have much to thank him for, then,” Deckard said. “I only wish I could have met him.”
A wistful sigh escaped Evylin, and she looked down at her cousin’s name embedded in the headstone. “Well,” she began, “I like to think that in another life, you did meet him.”
“Oh?”
She nodded. “Yes. In a world where there was no fire—where no one was careless enough to leave a candle burning in the village hall and the houses behind it never burned—Ryen lived and grew to manhood with me. Hewitt stayed in the service, enjoying his commission and helping Ephria excel in the war. At seventeen, Ryen would have joined the army, as we’d agreed.
He would have been gone for some time, and that would have been hard, but I would have known that it was in service to our future.
I imagine he rose through the ranks, became an officer just as quickly as his father, and shortly after, returned on leave.
“I would have asked if he’d found a husband for me yet,” she said, and Deckard grinned. “‘No, but I have a plan. I’m going to talk to your father,’ he would say. ‘I’m going to convince him to let you come with me to Loclight, and we’ll find you a husband together there.’”
“Would your father have agreed to something like that?”
Evylin nodded theatrically. “Oh, yes. Ryen was very persuasive.”
They chuckled together, and she continued, “Then off to Loclight we would go. Months would pass, and I wouldn’t find anyone who interested me.
I’d be lonely, worried my father would recall me if I didn’t find a husband soon enough for his liking.
And then when all hope seemed lost, I would go to a dinner party and meet this handsome, young lieutenant—were you a lieutenant when you were first stationed in Loclight? ”
His eyes twinkled merrily as he corrected, “I was a sergeant.”
“Mm. Well, I would have met this lieutenant and realized he was stupid.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Then I would have been introduced to the most singular Sergeant Deckard, who would have inevitably swept me off my feet.”
Deckard laughed gently. “I doubt that.”
“No, it’s quite true,” she insisted. “This sergeant was ostensibly charming, unassumingly handsome, and excessively witty. I couldn’t have found a better match.”
“So I only seem charming?”
“You’re perfectly charming,” she said. “But I see through your charms to the depth in your heart.”
His expression grew almost bashful.
“As I was saying,” Evylin teased, continuing her tale.
“In this other life, we would have met at a party in Loclight, and I would have fallen in love with you readily and easily. You would have courted me and become friends with Ryen, and together, the three of us would have gone on our adventure. Although I don’t think you’d make a good pirate. ”
“This is your fantasy,” Deckard noted. “I could be a fantastic pirate in this other life.”
Evylin scrunched her nose. “Mm, no. I wouldn’t change a thing about you.”
His smile flattened slightly. “So I’d still be a Mage in this version of reality?”
“And I’d be a Warrior,” she said. “So would Ryen, by the way. If this is my fantasy, the three of us live together forever.”
Deckard chuckled. “Just the three of us? Shouldn’t Ryen have his own love?”
Evylin pursed her lips and looked at the headstone. “What do you think? Do you find love?”
A gentle breeze rustled the everbloom flowers.
With a pert nod, Evylin turned back to Deckard. “Yes,” she confirmed. “A beautiful Mage who works with the Alliance.”
Deckard’s eyes grew wider. “The Alliance exists in this other life?”
“Well, someone has to stop Blount. And it won’t be Ephren.”
“I suppose you have a point.”
They were silent for a moment, and Deckard kissed her temple. “I like this story of yours,” he said.
“So do I,” Evylin said, a well of longing for the life that could never have been filling her chest.
Another long silence drifted between them as they sat there, the sun dipping lower in the sky. They stared at the headstone together, imagining what might have been. After a while, Deckard released her hand and adjusted to sit more comfortably beside her.
She could feel his unease, and it caused him to pull away from her. It bothered her that the Space Relic’s presence did this to him. But he needed to learn to control it. She wouldn’t allow him to take the easy path. Not when it could potentially mean their demise.
“Jonn,” Evylin whispered, breaking the silence, “I need to ask you something.”
“All right,” he said softly.
“You won’t like it.”
His brow pinched, but he waited patiently.
Evylin took a deep breath. “When this is all over, if we could have any life, what would you want it to look like?”
Deckard pressed his lips together. A flutter of agitation and confusion melded around him, but resignation broke through a mere moment later. “I don’t know,” he said. “Whatever you wanted to do, wherever you wanted to go, I’d be happy.”
Evylin bit her tongue and fought down her irritation at his overinflated sense of goodwill. “I appreciate the sentiment, Jonn, but that’s not what I’m asking. I want to know what life you want. I want your answer, not mine.”
“Why is it so wrong of me to want what you want?” he asked gently. “Why can’t I wish to give you your dreams?”
“You have given me my dreams.” She motioned to Ryen’s headstone. “You’ve given me our dreams. Now, I’d like to give you yours.”
“I don’t have any,” he said, and she knew it was a lie. But he held her gaze so adamantly she knew he must think it the truth. “Making you happy is all I desire.”
Evylin didn’t have a response. She felt the same.
After living out her and Ryen’s dream, after going on her grand adventure, she found herself decidedly underwhelmed by the reality of it.
She’d kept her promise. Now, she was ready for something new.
The problem was that she didn’t know what she wanted.
And she felt it was only right that Deckard be selfish for once in his life.
But Deckard would continue to be selfishly selfless. He wouldn’t assert his desires because he felt it was wrong to do so. No matter how much she prodded or pleaded, he was rigid in his sacrificial stance.
So she’d have to push him.
“What if what makes me happy is accepting the position at the head of Allund’s government?” she said in a calm tone.
A flare of worry he couldn’t hide filled the air between them, and Deckard scanned her warily. “Is that what you want?” he asked.
Evylin shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t have all the information. But what if, after this is over and they’ve explained the role, I decide it sounds fun? What if I request that you become ruler beside me? Would you be happy then?”
Deckard’s jaw tightened as he turned away in thought. She studied his profile. His jawline was peppered with scruff. He’d begun shaving each morning again, returning to the routine of a soldier’s life. He liked routines. He liked orderliness. He liked control.
Evylin smiled affectionately. She disrupted his life in so many ways.
Perhaps that was necessary to force him to grow, just as he had forced her to grow.
She trusted now because of his steadiness and stability.
She wasn’t afraid of loss because she knew that loving fully—loving sacrificially as he did—was the only way to truly be happy.
It was her turn to help him.
“Jonn,” she whispered tenderly, “I want the truth. I want to know your heart.”
Deckard closed his eyes, pulling in a deep breath.
When he exhaled heavily, she felt his tense demeanor ease.
His eyes met hers, and they were a cool blue with hardly any green left in them.
“My heart only desires you,” he said. “If you asked it of me, yes, I would become ruler beside you. But if it were my choice alone?” He shook his head gently. “I wouldn’t take it.”
Evylin cupped his cheek, leaning in close. “Then we won’t take it.”
Deckard’s brow pinched. “What if they don’t give us a choice?”
“What if we die in the Terrae Keep two days from now?” she returned. “What if we fail to defeat Blount? What if the Alliance isn’t everything they pretend to be?”
She kissed the furrow between his brows. “Those questions don’t matter, Jonn, because we can’t know the answers until they come. And we’ll figure it out together when they do.”
“And what if they attempt to force us?” he asked tiredly. “Will we reject them, no matter the consequences?”
“I suppose so.”
Deckard stared at her, a flitter of reluctance stirring the air.
Internally, Evylin took it as a confirmation of Thom’s earlier words.
Deckard wasn’t as opposed to this appointment as he said.
He wanted it, but he denied himself as a point of pride.
Yet, the part of him who desired to be Sergus lurked beneath, itching to take the role.
He wanted the responsibility he feared. He wanted to prove his worth. He was just too scared to admit it.
“All right,” Deckard said, a heaviness in his posture. “We won’t accept it.”
Evylin nodded, but she knew within her heart that their future was still undecided. And her husband would not be happy until he let himself be loved, no matter how selfish it seemed.