Chapter 44
forty-four
Iwasn’t ready. I teetered on the precipice of committing the ultimate sin.
And it was hell.
Maybe I’d save the world, but at the price of him.
I could certainly move on. But I could never pretend he wasn’t there. No one, not a single other mortal or otherwise, would be or could be what he was to me. I’d ridden a dragon and seen the edge of the realm, and there wasn’t another Aelen.
I didn’t let myself cry. I denied those tears, just like I’d denied him when we first met. I brushed it away to keep my mind and soul clear, so that he might not see how close I was to breaking.
And then, I nodded silently.
It’s time.
Before we left the great entrance hall, I took one last look at the I’phri. I’d only get one shot at this. One fleeting chance. And I had half a fucking song and had to convince a god to let Aelen cross.
I’d played cards hundreds of times and never been in such a precarious position. I couldn’t have been more aware of my odds. One minor slip, in a million opportunities of failure, and everyone would die.
He wrenched the doors open, flooding the cracks with enough lumen to melt the metal. Before I followed, I relaxed my features to hide the wall of anguish.
He can’t know.
He beckoned me with a wave and a forced grin that brought tears to my eyes. I blinked them away as he took my hand. The cold slammed into us, but he seemed unbothered. Since the snow was dreadfully deep, he held out a hand where fire blazed upward, melting the path ahead.
Dreary weather slowed our progress, and I spent far too much time gazing at the ashen skies, wondering what they would bring.
What should have been a few-hour walk turned into a day-long quest. By the time the stables materialized between the trees, the world had dimmed to a dull and dark ancient argent.
We didn’t go to them. We followed the tree line to the clearing at the back. Beneath the dark clouds, silvery bodies slid along the drafts, serpent-like even in the air.
“Call down Mourn,” Aelen instructed. He acted as if it were so easy. As if I could merely screech to the skies, and he would descend.
“I can’t.”
“Feel him in your soul, and tug him down. You have enough lumen, now. He’ll listen.”
I laid a trembling palm across my chest as impetus churned to greet my hand. But it wasn’t in excitement—it was anxiousness. Dread.
Mourn.
A trembling cry ripped across the sky, as distant as thunder, yet rippled through my soul.
“Mourn.”
Like ink on the horizon marking my doom, he came. He spiraled from the darkened sky, every gale pushing him back, but not enough to deter his descent. Within moments, he hovered above the wispy treetops, shaking the barren wood with every beat.
When he landed, the ground shook, and I fell back a step.
He didn’t use to be this big. With teeth like swords, shedding stark obsidian scales along the awful ice.
His head was a mess of searing steam and jagged teeth, which fought for a place in his jaws.
My knees shook, and I broke into a cold sweat—but I wasn’t afraid.
Not of him.
I approached Mourn with a throaty lament. “When did he get so large?”
“Ask the Singers, they made him. But the fresh air and threat of dying usually do wonders for their metamorphosis. It pushes them closer to death. The open-air flying has been great for building muscle.”
I scratched his scales, but cringed when they came away in my fingers. “But why not let them fly free before?”
“The Singers advised me not to. I couldn’t, not until I was worried they’d freeze solid. I only released them to give them a way to find sanctuary from the cold.”
I turned my gaze back to Aelen. He was only a few steps away, yet it felt like a mile.
I thought about running into his arms. But I didn’t.
I paced toward Mourn with more whispered words.
Soft nothings, to take the edge off his temper and keep his jagged teeth far from me.
If he swiped at me now, it would eviscerate me.
Every crunch of my boots reminded me of the sound of a blade piercing bone. When I got closer, Mourn stretched his wings and lifted them, allowing me to scale his back.
I hesitated. And in that second, my feet remained firmly on the ice, Aelen tugged me toward him, wrapping me in a warm hug.
That embrace stoked a fire in me like never before, and our feet melted the ice, leaving steaming dead grass behind.
The blues gave way to an ancient yellow, and I had a dissolving dream of emerald green.
I didn’t think the sun would ever warm my skin again. I foresaw nothing but a perpetually icy future, but in that brief moment, I envisioned a hope of summer. But as soon as his arms separated, that evaporated into the everwinter.
When I gazed up at the drab hues I’d learned to call home, Aelen stepped beside me and slipped his cloak from his shoulders. He threw it around mine and buttoned it, tugging the hood up slightly.
His locks came free and caught in the wind, blowing around him like a midnight crown. Regal, like the king he was—though I knew he’d despise me calling him that.
He adjusted the front of the fabric, tugging it tighter, and letting his fingers linger as long as they could on me. The silence wrapped around us until he decided to shatter it.
“Never forget me.” Tears dripped down his pallid cheeks, freezing. “I’ll never forget you.”
Reality cracked into me like a bitter, unyielding knife, and tears slipped from my eyes, too. I couldn’t stop them, not that I wanted to. He took my hand and ran a finger across where the pact lay, but held my gaze.
This couldn’t be goodbye. Not now, not after everything.
He squeezed my hand. “It’s bittersweet, wouldn’t you say?”
“I can’t say goodbye.”
He smiled through the tears. “Then don’t. Kiss me and pretend we’ll meet again. I’ll pretend for you, Lorelana. I’ll lie for you.”
With that, my heart shattered. With what I had to do, he would never forgive me, and I would never forgive myself.
“Stop being so kind,” I said through the tears. “Please.”
He tugged up my chin with the tenderest of touches.
“No.” He pinned a lock, letting his fingers linger once more as they traced down my damp, frozen cheeks.
“I love you more than I thought it possible. I love you like the Starsingers love the beasts of the sky, and I love you like they love the wind. To me, you are my air, and without you, my world will be ever so much smaller.”
“Please stop,” I begged.
“Am I meant to not say goodbye? Perhaps you don’t wish to, but I do. I never deserved your forgiveness, but you gave it anyway. So short of your instruction, I will bid you the goodbye you deserve.”
“I want to pretend.”
He smiled, the way he always did, with his eyes lighting up as much as they could. He forced it and pressed his lips to my forehead. “I will see you soon—” his voice cracked. “And when I do, it will be as if we never spent a moment apart.”
“I hate that you can lie so easily.”
His fingers dug into my chin. “No, you don’t.”
His lips met mine with a passionate fury.
His flesh seared my fingers as I ran them down his carved face.
He burned me, and yet I didn’t want less, I craved more.
But I knew if I didn’t part from him, I’d never leave.
So I wrenched myself from his arms and tried to put space between us.
But as always, his hands lingered on my forearm, my waist, my hip.
Anything he could touch until I was beyond grasping distance.
And I was back to staring at the cold reality. I thrust myself atop Mourn and readied myself for the bleak future. Yet I found it difficult to orient myself. My legs hardly fit, and he wasn’t the smooth serpent I remembered.
Now his scales came up with the lightest touch, and his skin held the distinct smell of death. A certain rot and decay you couldn’t scrub from your skin, even with a thousand baths.
But Aelen placed a spindly silver dagger into my palm, closing my fingers around it. “For when you cleave your father and end the pact. You’re going to take this, shred him, and run for it.”
My mouth dried until my tongue lashed my teeth like a knife. “I’ll be lucky if Ovatar doesn’t strike me where I stand.”
“He won’t. I’ll make sure of it.”
My jaw unhinged. He couldn’t mean that. That he’d draw the monster to the border—to his people. “No! You can’t.”
“I can, and will. If you die, this will all be for naught. We cannot live, but you can. I love you, Lorelana.”
“Aelen, no!” I screeched. Before I could jump from Mourn, Aelen ran his fingers across my dragon’s rotting back and motioned toward the churning clouds.
“Take to the skies. This is my last command before I relinquish you to her.”
He beat his wings so hard that Aelen retreated. I grappled for a hold as we violently left the ground.
“Remember me,” he repeated until the tempest stole his voice. It ached to look at him.
Everything ached.
I screamed, but Mourn’s roar silenced it. The world constricted me until I suffocated in the wind.