Chapter 28 Bryony
brYONY
THE WIND ON the Duehavn stings my cheeks as I stare out at the ridge.
All around me, the serrated peaks are knitted together by tendrils of mist punctuated by sheer, dizzying drops.
There’s nothing green up here. No trees, no flowers or grass.
Only the dramatic browns and slate grays of the crags, the interlacing colors of the Shroud shimmering across the sky.
It’s breathtaking—in a brutal, merciless sort of way.
I navigate across the uneven ground, shale skittering beneath my boots. This place hasn’t changed. It’s the same savage, merciless landscape that swallowed my screams. That cut into my back as I struggled against Idris’ hold and took its own bloodletting when the blade did.
I wonder if some part of me is still here, spilled out across the rocks. A memorial for the Anchor. The woman I was.
The memory pierces through me, sudden and violent—struggling against my uncle, the knife as he plunged it in, staring up at the sky as I died.
You’re fine. You’re in control. This is just a place; it can’t hurt you.
One step. Two. I force myself toward the edge. The world pitches, my head spinning as I peer over the drop.
“Careful. It’s a long way down.”
I focus on the distant horizon, not trusting myself to look at the Wolf. “Oblivion’s tempting when the inside of my mind gets too loud.”
Gravel crunches as he closes the distance between us, stepping up behind me close enough to touch.
“Where are you right now?” he asks, so soft it’s nearly lost to the wind. “In your head.”
“Nowhere you want to be. It’s not pretty.”
“I’m no stranger to ugly.”
A bitter laugh scrapes out of me. “Is that a request to take a nice, long look at my scars and watch me squirm?”
“If that’s what you need from me.” The barest shift of movement, and I feel the warm press of his chest against my back.
Hardly daring to breathe, I stand frozen as he reaches out and catches my chin, turning my face to his. Those golden eyes are soft as they flicker between mine, as if he’s trying to figure me out.
“Want to talk it out, nemesis?”
It’s too gentle. Too tender. I can almost convince myself he isn’t the villain of my story. That there’s something warmer hidden underneath—something true. Because when he calls me nemesis, it’s like he’s telling me a secret.
But I’m lying to myself.
“You want a peek inside my head?” My lips flatten, and I turn out of his grasp. “Fine. Go ahead and poke around in all the dark corners. Maybe it’ll help you sleep better when you finally end me.”
The Wolf lets out a slow exhale. Then he turns to a nearby boulder and sits, wings flaring out. “Come here.”
I hesitate. “Why?”
“Just come here.”
When I walk over, he tugs me down into his lap and wraps those large wings around us both—a golden cocoon shielding us from the world.
His breath is warm on my neck. “There’s no prize for suffering,” he says in a low voice. “Pain isn’t a game. Stop punishing yourself with it.”
Don’t.
The sound that leaves me is almost a sob, but when I try to pull out of his arms, he just holds me tighter. Keeping me still.
He keeps talking. “Swallow down enough of that toxic shit, and eventually, you go numb to everything else. Until the only thing that cuts through the static is pain—inflicting it, chasing it. It’s the only way anything feels real.”
Stop, I want to beg him. Stop, stop, stop.
He doesn’t get to do this. He doesn’t get to reach into my chest, pry up all the ugly bits, and act as if he understands. But he’s relentless, digging deeper. Picking at all my wounds.
“So you spread that pain around like a sickness,” he continues, his chest rising and falling against my back, “making damn sure everyone else is as miserable and fucked up on the inside as you are. Because why should you be the only one choking on it? What’s right about bleeding out alone?”
I shut my eyes tightly. “Why are you telling me this? Why do you care?”
“Because I’ve spent three hundred years hurting everyone around me.
” He strokes my cheek, fingers as soft as mothwings on my skin.
“I know revenge feels good at first. It makes you feel powerful, like you’re the one in control.
Like you’re taking back what was stolen from you and rewriting the story so you’re the one holding the blade.
But it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough.
You’ll tear yourself to shreds, bleed yourself dry, and that hungry void inside you will just swallow it down and howl for more. ”
“It’s easy for you to say,” I tell him, my tone sharp. “Have you ever been powerless? Ever had everything stolen from you?”
“Yes.”
Something squeezes hard in my chest. A thousand questions fill the air, going unvoiced.
“Tell me what’s in your head,” he whispers. “It’s okay. I can handle your dark.”
And I—
Break.
I shove away from him and stumble to my feet. The icy wind slaps my face as I stride back toward the cliff’s edge, needing space. Needing air. I can’t let him hold me while I’m falling apart, confessing all the ways I’m vulnerable to my enemy.
But why not? Why not tell someone? Why not spill my ugliness at his feet and see if he still thinks I’m worthy of being his masterpiece?
The rocks where my uncle stabbed me are still rust-stained, even now. I can’t look away. Can’t unsee it. A snarling, vicious thing writhes in my chest, desperate to sink its teeth in and tear the world apart.
“I wanted it to be you,” I say, wrapping my arms around myself. “The one to end it.”
The Wolf remains silent behind me. I’m already in free fall, the truths like broken glass tumbling out of me.
“What I had before… it was never really living. I bled where they told me to bleed. Died how they wanted me to die. My agency was stripped away until I hardly recognized my own reflection.”
The crunch of gravel pierces through the white noise. Then the Wolf is at my back, not pressing or pulling. Just steadying.
“In the end, even my death wasn’t my own,” I say bitterly.
“When I was in that carriage—when Idris was bringing me here—I couldn’t stop thinking that if this was really it, if I wasn’t going to walk away this time, I deserved to have it on my terms. The way you and I agreed.
One thing that was mine, even if it was the way I went out. ”
A shudder rolls through me, my nails cutting into my palms. I should stop. I shouldn’t give him more of me. But I can’t. The words keep tumbling out, each one cutting deeper.
“I fought. Instinct, I guess. The animal part of my brain was too stupid to realize I was already past saving. I kicked and thrashed and clawed until he pinned me to the ground.” Tears spill down my cheeks, and I wipe them away.
“And then Idris left me there. Alone, bleeding out in the dirt. Can you even imagine what it’s like, dying like that?
Discarded by your own family? It’s not the knife that keeps me up at night.
It’s knowing I wasn’t even worth staying for.
Not worth making it hurt less. I was nothing. ”
Stone scraping my spine through my cloak. Gravel biting into my skin as I thrashed. Hands at my throat.
“Devaliant.”
The Wolf’s voice comes from far away, muted beneath the haze. I can’t tell if it’s concern or impatience. The whine inside my head builds to a screech, and I can’t—
“Devaliant.”
Distantly, I register the quickness of my breath—in and out in and out in and out. Marking my unraveling.
“Bryony.”
I’m sure I’ve imagined it. The shape of my name in his mouth, those three syllables given careful weight and deliberate intent.
“Bryony. Hey, breathe, okay? Eyes on me,” the Wolf commands. He brackets my face in his palms, his skin warm. “Breathe. Feel my chest moving against yours.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to match his breathing, expanding my ribs against his on the inhale, moving in sync. Everything else falls away—the wind and the brutal drop and the ugly stain on the rocks. And bit by bit, I claw my way back to myself.
The first drops of rain splatter against my cheeks. I turn into it, desperate for anything to ground me in my body, in the present.
And I don’t let myself think.
Gripping the Wolf’s shirt, I pull him down until his lips hover over mine. Until I can taste the spice of him on every exhale, feel the drum of his pulse everywhere we’re pressed together. The seconds stretch. A moment punctuated by the beat of rainfall, our ragged exhales.
Then I lean up and brush my mouth against his.
It’s barely a kiss at all. Just a tentative graze, a careful sharing of breath.
A hesitant question and an equally hesitant answer, full of all the unspoken things simmering between us.
His mouth is a revelation. Firm and soft at once, the barest scrape of stubble, the way his breath hitches slightly when I open to him. A gentle, yearning kind of hunger.
The Wolf freezes—a perfect, poised sort of surprise, like I’ve startled him. I brace for rejection, the ridicule sure to follow. Because of course, this beautiful god doesn’t want—
He gentles me back with a hand on my nape. Not a refusal, but a momentary reset. There’s a question in his eyes when they meet mine.
Rain falls harder now, soaking through my clothes, plastering my hair to my skin.
“Do it again,” I whisper, reckless and wild and aching. “Kiss me like I’m not Bryony Devaliant. I don’t want to be her right now. Kiss me like I’m someone else.”
I’m shaking. He has to see it, has to know I’m hanging by a thread.
“Who do you want to be, then?” he asks, soft as a secret. Softer than he has any right to be.
Yours.
What comes out is: “How would you kiss me if I were your lover? If you could take me any way you wanted, no holding back?”
A growl rumbles through him. The hand at my nape tightens, and he hesitates, chest moving faster. “Fuck it,” he says.
Then he slants his mouth over mine.