Chapter 20 #3
If Myanin’s life remained tied to his, then whatever choice waited inside that book would demand more than truth. More than confession. More than the emotional flaying which the Nushtonia seemed so fond of.
It would demand release.
Perhaps from her. Perhaps from him. Perhaps from both.
And if he clung to her because the Great Luna had once blessed their bond, he could become another kind of prison.
The thought nearly drove him backward. His weight shifted on his heels before he caught himself.
No. Never. He would never be that. Not to her. Not to anyone.
Gerick drew a slow breath, squared his shoulders, and turned back to the goddess. “If the time comes and holding on harms her, I will let go.”
Peri made a broken sound behind him. He did not turn to look.
The Great Luna’s eyes shone with something ancient and aching. “I know.”
His throat tightened. “Will it kill me?” The question was practical. A warrior’s question.
The Great Luna did not answer, and that was answer enough.
Gerick nodded once. The motion felt borrowed from a body that was not quite his anymore.
Acceptance did not feel peaceful. It felt like being hollowed out with care, scoop by patient scoop.
“Then, when the time comes,” he said, “you will tell me what must be done.”
The Great Luna stepped closer and cupped his face with both hands. Her palms framed his jaw with a tenderness he had not felt since before he could remember feeling anything.
For a moment he was not a general, not a warlock, not a male losing the female he loved. He was simply a creation held by the one who had made him, and the grief he had locked behind discipline finally rose too high to contain.
A single tear slid down his face. He did not wipe it away.
The Great Luna brushed it with her thumb, slow and reverent, as though gathering something precious.
“Oh, my son,” she whispered. “This is why you were worthy of her.”
His breath caught.
Worthy. Not because she would choose him. Not because he could keep her.
Because he could love her enough not to make her stay.
The words broke him quietly. There was no dramatic collapse, violent roar, or wild surge of magic. Just a fracture through the center of him, clean and irreversible, like a blade slipped between ribs by a hand he could not see.
Behind the goddess, the Nushtonia pulsed once.
This time Gerick did not reach for it. He looked down at the dark cover and felt Myanin again, distant and fierce and confused and alive.
Then he felt Shade beside her.
The rage rose. So did grief. But beneath both, something else finally took root.
A decision.
“If he hurts her,” Gerick said, voice low, almost level, “I will still kill him.”
The Great Luna’s mouth curved gently. “I would expect nothing less.”
Peri sniffed loudly behind him, the sound somehow both indignant and damp. “For the record, I'll help.”
Gerick turned to look at her. The high fae’s eyes were bright, lashes wet, but her chin was lifted, defiant even in sorrow, both hands planted firmly on her hips.
“What?” she demanded, glaring at him as if he had been the one who started this. “Growth doesn’t mean we stop threatening people.”
For the first time all night, Gerick laughed.
It was small. Rough. Painful. But real, and it scraped its way out of his chest like a thing that had been buried too long beneath everything else.
The Great Luna stepped back, her form already beginning to soften into moonlight around the edges. The hem of her gown unraveled into mist before it touched the moss.
“Hold fast, General,” she said. “The foundations have been shaken, and it has started. There is still more darkness before dawn.”
Gerick bowed his head. “There always is.”
When he looked up again, she was gone.
The forest slowly exhaled. Sound returned in layers. Leaves shifting. Distant wings rustling. Water moving somewhere down the mountain. A draheim, very far away, making the low grumble that meant it had decided not to investigate.
Peri stood beside him in silence for several long moments. Then, without looking at him, she slipped her hand into his.
Gerick looked down at their joined hands, surprised by the small, careful tightness of her fingers.
“I’m not good at comfort,” she said.
“No.”
“And if you tell anyone I held your hand, I’ll deny it and possibly set your hair on fire.”
“I believe you.”
“Good.”
He looked back at the Nushtonia. The book rested motionless on the stone. For now.
Gerick’s fingers tightened around Peri’s hand once before he released her and straightened fully, shoulders squaring, spine settling into the line every soldier under his command would have recognized in their sleep. He was still hurting. That had not changed.
But the shape of the hurt had.
Before, it had been a chain. Now it was a blade.
He could carry a blade. He had carried many.
“Gather Lucian, Lilly, and Serapha,” he said quietly.
Peri studied him, head tilting, the last of her tears blinked away. “What are you going to do?”
Gerick looked toward the distant mountains where draheim watched from ancient shadows, their eyes occasionally catching the moonlight like scattered embers.
“What generals do.”
His voice steadied. The wind, finally, touched his face.
“We prepare for the battle we don’t want to fight.”