Chapter Fifty-Eight
TALIK
House Azaes Arx, Egypt
Lord and Lady Azaes Mausoleum
Talik stood at the doors of the Azaes family tomb, his hands entwined with Khalida’s. After all this time, he was going to be able to say goodbye to Sidra. The yellow desert he had once hated was far more comforting than it had been in a long time.
A proper farewell, fitting the child she had been. He and Khalida would be able to keep her memory alive. Sidra may no longer be with them, but she would always be a part of them.
Khalida stoically stared ahead. He knew she hated this place. It brought back too many memories of times when she was alone and grieving.
He should have been here with her, but that was now moot thinking.
They were no longer the young Atlanteans they once had been.
Lust had turned to love, and then hate, and had been reforged in a burning inferno—reborn into what they had now.
He stopped and took a deep breath. In front of them, hundreds of candles flickered in the slight breeze.
They had been lit in a vigil. Sidra would no longer be in darkness for as long as he and Khalida breathed.
The North Star inked on his chest had been completed in honor of Sidra, who had been named for the stars, and just like the ink, she would forever be a part of him.
“Are you positive?” she asked, a note of fear entering her voice.
He dragged Khalida closer to him, placing a soft kiss on her forehead as she wrapped herself around him. Their hearts beat as one. The consort mark burned hotly on his wrist. Never again would they be separated for centuries.
“If you want a family, we can find a way. But what I said hasn’t changed.
Not one iota. We will always be enough for me.
” He wiped a tear from her face. It would never cease to amaze him that Khalida trusted him enough that she no longer hid behind the stony facade.
It was a gift he would never get enough of.
“From now until the end of time. Until we return to the ground and become star dust. I will always find my way back to you.”
“I love you,” Khalida whispered.
It didn’t matter how many times she had whispered it in the last two weeks, it always sent a thrill through him.
“I’m ready to say goodbye.”
Khalida nodded, tightening her hold on him. “For this lifetime.”
He closed his eyes. “Until the next time we meet.”