56. Chapter Fifty-Six #2
Blackreach stretches endlessly beneath the rising sun, so vast it makes even the mountain range we're standing on top of feel small.
Golden light spills across sweeping grasslands and rolling desert plains, broken by winding rivers and sparse forests dark against the earth.
The early morning haze softens the horizon until the province seems to go on forever.
A beautiful, untouched land full of possibilities.
Even after all the times I’ve stood here alone, it still takes my breath away.
Halley steps closer to the edge slowly, staring out over the landscape wide-eyed and unblinking. I move with her automatically, close enough that if she slips, I can pull her to safety.
Her throat works as she looks down at the narrow trail winding between the cliffs below us. Sunlight catches in her hair while the wind whips strands of it across her face.
"That’s.. there's a path down?"
"Yeah."
She follows it with her eyes. It's not an easy route.
The pathway up the mountain is tough, and going down the other side isn't much safer.
The passage is barely wide enough for one person in places, disappearing beneath rock overhangs and steep declines before reappearing farther down the mountain.
No chance of moving an army through it.
But for determined people?
Survivors?
Small groups willing to brave the climb for a chance at a future life?
It's possible.
I lean against the rock beside her and let her take it in at her own pace.
"It bypasses the Pass completely," she says softly.
I nod.
Hope settles warm and aching through the bond between us. We crushed that hope the day we destroyed the Pass into Blackreach, and fuck, is it nice to feel it back.
Until then, she’d been holding on to the possibility that one day she’d find her way back to Dazz, Ember, and Flicker, the three Omegas who spent a decade beside her in the Omega Division at Barkrood Base.
She doesn’t talk about them often anymore, but when she does, there’s no missing what they mean to her, and I feel that unwavering love through the bond.
It isn’t the love she has for her mates, but it runs just as deep.
It’s familial and steady, a connection distance and time couldn’t possibly break.
When the Pass collapsed, it was like we buried them beneath it.
I had to make it right.
Halley’s eyes shine as she looks out over Blackreach, and her breathing hitches into little hiccups, like she’s trying not to cry.
Rut-damn. Tears are what I was trying to avoid.
"This is what you’ve been doing," she says quietly. "Every time you disappeared."
"Yeah."
I hadn't realized she noticed I was gone more often than my patrol schedule accounted for. I always made it back in time for the weekly Blood Lust clinic.
All this time, I thought I was being subtle about it.
Thought she hadn’t noticed the climbing gear drying in the cupboard off the main corridor of our den or the freshly healed wounds that came from chiseling metal into rock.
Standing beside her now, feeling the grief and hope crashing together through the bond, I realize she never even imagined this was the reason.
"You built a way back into Blackreach," she whispers.
I shrug because I don’t know what else to do with the look she’s giving me.
"You kept staring at the mountains," I tell her.
My words feel inadequate. How do I describe the need to fix the pain I felt from my mate every day through the bond? That I couldn't just stand by and watch her hurt.
Her face crumples.
Fuck.
I reach for her automatically, my hand sliding to the back of her neck, thumb brushing over the mating gland and my claiming bite hidden beneath her collar before I pull her into me.
Halley grips the front of my jacket hard while I hold her against my chest with her tucked beneath my chin.
I take deep inhales, soaking in her scent, as Halley makes little gasping sounds against me.
When she finally leans back enough to look at me, her eyes are wet and red.
So much for not making my Omega cry.
"You did this for me," she says softly.
I nod. She’s right.
Sure, this route will give hundreds, maybe thousands, of displaced people a chance at sanctuary and a new beginning, and it will allow provisions to flow between Blackgate and the settlements in Blackreach, but that was never the reason I kept climbing these mountains day in and day out.
They weren't the reason I carved out stone and ice until my hands bled.
I did it for her. Everything I do is for her.
I swipe away one of her tears with my thumb before it can freeze against her cheek.
"Seemed important to you."
A broken laugh escapes her again, halfway between disbelief and exasperated fondness usually reserved for Blaze.
Halley’s hands slide up into my jacket, and I can feel her cold hands even through my thermal shirt and her gloves. I cup the back of her neck again, thumb stroking once over her gland before I press my forehead to hers.
"I'd tear down this mountain stone by stone if it would make you smile, pretty girl."
She whimpers. A purely Omegan sound that goes straight through me, soft and overwhelmed and trusting, which makes every protective instinct I possess snap to attention.
I kiss her slowly, one hand firm at her waist and the other cradling her neck while sunlight warms her face and the wind whips her hair around us.
She melts into me without hesitation, trusting me with her body, her hope, and the fragile future I carved through the mountain because I couldn’t stand leaving her with grief.
Below us, the path winds down into Blackreach, open and waiting.
For the first time since the war ended, the future feels bigger than Blackgate Fortress.