35. Thirty-Five
Thirty-Five
Callan woke in Nox’s tent some time later, plagued by an all-consuming thirst. Lucan approached the bed, offering a flask when Callan sat up.
Callan drank greedily, the cool water soothing his aching throat.
His eyes burned, and his head throbbed. The interior of the tent glowed faintly, and he squinted as he glanced at the moonstone orbs strung up around the ceiling.
The hour grew late. No light slanted through the vent opening in the roof.
Dusk, perhaps. As Callan swiped a sleeve across his chin, his eyes adjusting, he saw her.
Shoving the empty flask into Lucan’s hands, Callan rose from the bed.
On a low table in the center of the tent lay Nova.
Callan approached her slowly. The blade was gone from her chest. Her blood-soaked tunic replaced with one of the loose-sleeved shirts Nox often wore.
Her dark hair was combed smooth. The blood cleaned from her face.
Whoever had prepared her had closed her eyes.
If he didn’t know the horrible truth, he might have thought she was simply sleeping.
Fresh tears stung his eyes as he thought of all the nights they’d spent apart. Nights they should have been sleeping side by side. He fell to his knees beside her and laid a hand on her head, his fingers tunneling into the midnight strands.
“I took care of her myself.”
The voice came from behind him. Callan gritted his teeth, unwilling to look at Bryn.
“Kind of you to see to her in death.” He swallowed hard, the word—death—bitter, like bile, on his tongue. “If only you’d honored your vow to protect her with your life.”
“She asked me—” Bryn’s voice was nearer, and Callan twisted to face her, his teeth bared.
“Come no closer,” he cautioned, his throat burning with the warning forced past his lips.
Reason and restraint had abandoned him, leaving nothing but a male standing between his mate and anyone who sought to take her from him.
“I don't care what she asked you. You made a vow, and you failed to keep it.”
“Nova charged Bryn with watching over you in the battle.”
The second voice came from the opposite side of the tent, and Callan turned to find Riven standing close by. His eyes darted around the room, and he took note of Nox and Arik, the two of them standing near the entrance.
“Stand back.” Callan curled an arm protectively around Nova’s waist.
“Their bond is young, Wyldling.” Caution clung to the edge of Lucan’s voice. “You’d be wise to keep your distance.”
At the commander’s words, Callan squeezed his eyes shut.
He cast about wildly, searching for the bond, the tether that had connected him to Nova since the night they’d met.
The thread was faint and difficult to find—slack when it had once been taut—but still there.
Tears crept out the corners of his eyes and down his cheeks.
He didn’t understand. How cruel to let the connection linger when she lay so still and cold beneath his fingertips.
Callan blew out a breath, blinking the tears from his eyes and shaking off the emotion distracting him from his aim: protecting Nova even in death.
“I am keeping my distance,” Riven insisted. “I’m merely explaining that Nova bid Bryn to watch over Callan. Bryn simply did as she was asked.”
“I thought better of it,” Bryn added quietly. “I flew to Raven’s Isle, but I was too late. Omen was dead. The Estate crumbling into the earth. I brought her back to you.”
“If you’re hoping I’ll show my appreciation, you’ve a long wait ahead of you.” Callan searched Nova’s face, so untroubled in her eternal sleep.
From his place near the entrance, Nox spoke Callan’s name softly. Callan tensed, steeling his resolve should the Noble Lord seek to use his power of influence to ease Callan’s emotions once again. But his anger remained, raw and untouched.
“We must honor our traditions,” Nox explained, words measured, voice thick with his own grief. “We must ready her for the pyre.”
“The gods will keep her for eternity. Surely you can let me keep her a few moments longer.”
Lucan spoke next. “That we can.”
A beat of silence followed, then the faint shuffling of boots on the carpeted floor as everyone exited the tent.
“I’ll be outside if you need me.”
Though Callan’s chest swelled with gratitude for Lucan, he didn’t look at the commander, just nodded in acknowledgment and stared at the canvas wall straight ahead.
Once alone, he turned his attention to Nova.
With the fog of shock lifted, he allowed himself to truly see her.
Tenderly, he cupped her face, brushing his thumbs over her cheekbones.
Bruising bloomed at the bridge of her nose, swollen and slightly crooked, the faint purple spreading to the inner corners of her eyes.
Tiny cuts dotted her cheeks and neck, and blood tinged the teeth visible through her slightly parted lips, cracked and drained of their color.
Callan took up her right hand, which had been laid atop her stomach.
A deep cut split the flesh of her palm and fingers down to the bone, the wound still fresh.
Her body hadn’t been able to begin healing itself.
Callan pressed the back of her hand to his lips, his shoulders shaking with stifled sobs at what the Shadowbringer had done to her. What she had endured to save them all.
He gathered her hands and folded them on her stomach once more.
Though she lay before him without breath, the color drained from her cheeks, his mind refused to accept she was truly gone.
He’d carried the same notion about his parents for two hundred years.
The not knowing, not seeing with his own eyes, had haunted him.
Callan’s gaze traveled from Nova’s face to her chest where the hilt of Kinslayer had been.
He shook his head to dislodge the memory of the cursed blade buried there.
With a trembling hand, he hooked a finger in the loose collar of her shirt and slowly drew it down.
The sight of the wound struck him like a punch to the gut, robbing him of his breath. It spanned the width of a few fingers. Deep and brutal. Unhealed and undeniably fatal.
He pulled the collar back up, then pressed a kiss to her forehead, her temple, the space below her ear. He lingered there where the faint scent of her cut through the metallic tang of blood.
The rustle of the tent flap had him sitting up straight, jaw clenched as he readied himself to fight. To keep his mate from Embra’s flames for a bit longer.
Nox and Lucan entered, but they kept a respectful distance. The moonstone lamps flared; night had fallen. Silvergardian custom dictated the dead must undergo the rite of burning beneath the light of the first moon after death. He was running out of time. No amount would ever be enough.
“Your parents have been found,” Nox said.
The news should have brought him to his feet. Sent him charging across the battle-weary camp to finally be reunited with the two souls he’d thought of every day for the past two hundred years. But it didn’t. Nothing short of an act of the gods would tear him from her side.
“Come, Callan,” Lucan urged. “Come see your family.”
Rage charged through him anew, a living thing snaking along his limbs. He clenched his fists and turned his glare on the two males.
“She is my family! Right here and gone forever,” he roared, his voice breaking under the weight—the finality—of his words. He turned back to Nova, shaking his head. “There’s nothing for me outside these walls.”
As he looked on, a beam of white light appeared on Nova’s chest. Callan tipped his face to the opening in the roof.
Through it, Illora shone brightly against the dark canvas of the night sky.
All at once, the moonstones surged, so intensely Callan had to squint.
Only it wasn’t the moonstones, he realized.
The light was coming from Nova. It bloomed at her chest, growing brighter and brighter until it seemed he was staring directly into the sun.
Callan threw an arm across his face to shield his eyes.
A gasp followed.
A sharp intake of air, ragged and desperate, like someone drawing breath for the very first time.
Callan lowered his arm, terrified to hope.
On the bench before him sat Nova, upright and clutching at her chest. Her wide eyes flitted about the tent, her confusion and disbelief mirroring his own.
“Nova.” His voice was a whisper, so reverent in speaking her name, he wondered if she’d heard it.
She crashed against him, wrapping her arms about his shoulders.
Her fingertips dug into his back as she clung to him with a strength that one who’d been dead only a moment before should not possess.
She pulled back to look at him, awed, and even that meager separation was unbearable.
Callan took her face in his hands and brought his mouth to hers.
“My gods!” Lucan’s jubilant voice brought Callan back to himself.
“How?” Callan asked, searching her face for any sign she understood what magic had brought her back to him. “How is this possible?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. It seemed she was as stunned as the rest of them. Nova tugged down the collar of her shirt, lowering her chin to inspect her injury.
The wound was healed.
Cauterized by starlight.
A pearly scar was all that remained.