Chapter 37 #2
Crimson velvet—bright as blood and just as undeniable.
It was real and that meant Xavi’s death was real, and Ryn tilted her head back and let the tears wash down her face even as the clouds opened and silently began to snow—fat, white flakes drifting to the ground, covering all evidence of the magic that had once protected this place.
She needed to move. To find shelter. To decide what she would do and where she would go.
But the moment she moved, the moment she left the valley, she left behind a world that no one else would ever be able to share.
A memory that would become more like a dream with every passing day, until she began to wonder once more whether any of it had been real.
And she could not bear to think of forgetting Xavi.
Grim, wild, dangerous. Forest trickster and avenger of the wronged. Cursed, but undaunted. An honorable protector and an unyielding guardian.
At least… At least she still had that drawing.
Scrabbling in her pockets, Ryn drew out her notebook and fumbled through the pages until she found it—the white gryphon, captured in the very moment it had saved her from being eaten.
Tail lashing, crest feathers flared, eyes narrowed…
“I suppose I should have expected it.”
That voice…
The notebook fell from suddenly frozen fingers, bounced twice, and lay forgotten on the ground.
“If the world were ending, you would pause to find a pencil and a good vantage point.”
She could not bring herself to look. Could not bear to be wrong.
“Ryn.”
The snow was falling harder, covering the ground and making damp patches on the cover of her journal.
“Please tell me you’re all right. Tell me I did not hurt you.”
She steeled her heart. Lifted her chin. And saw Xaviel ven Arazul striding towards her out of the swirling snow.
A menacing form clad in unrelieved black, his white hair falling in wild tangles, and the crimson light of his power lurking at the corners of his eyes.
His right arm was tucked against his side, but he walked straight and true, never faltering until he stood before her, looking down with the most heartbreaking expression Ryn had ever seen.
“You’re not dead,” she mumbled in stunned disbelief. “I thought you were…”
“So did I.”
“Did Kel…”
He nodded. “I believe he used a part of his power to heal me. Not completely, but enough that I survived.”
“Then is he…”
Xavi’s eyes closed for a moment, and he shook his head. “He wanted to ensure that the enchantress had no way out. He chose to stay and take her with him.”
The King of Mists was gone.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“It was his choice.”
But what would Xavi’s choice have been, if Kel had not commanded him to go? Would he have chosen to stand by his king till the bitter end?
“Xavi, I…”
“Just as this choice was mine.”
Ryn dared to meet his gaze once more and realized that what she’d seen there was not merely sorrow, heartache, or regret.
It was hope. Bright and painful. A thing he’d once told her he had not felt for more than a thousand years.
And now, I do not know if I can keep walking through this dark world if you die.
“You…”
“I chose this, Ryn. In the end, Kel asked me what I truly wanted, and I chose… to try living. To believe that I can have more than a cursed existence.”
She could have cried, but she was already crying, and there was no naming an emotion for any of those tears. Happiness. Relief. Loss. Sorrow. Hope. All of them mingled together.
“Ryn, back there, you said that in another time and place, you would have chosen the door on the right.”
Oh, sweet saints, she had said that. When she thought that none of them were likely to survive, she’d somehow found the courage to be honest, but she would not take it back now, even if the mountain fell on her head as punishment for her presumption.
“I do not know all that you meant by it,” Xavi said softly. “But I dare to hope… It gave me courage enough to ask whether perhaps you dream of the same future that I do. A future… with you in it.”
Ryn opened her mouth, and for probably the first time in her entire twenty-six years, discovered that she had no words. But for the first time in twenty-six years…
She didn’t need them.
Because Xavi opened his arms, and the moment she walked into their circle, she was home.
Wounded to her very soul, crushed by unimaginable losses, and staggered by the violence that had so very nearly killed them both, but also…
safe. Safe enough to cry for innocence lost. For the sacrifices made.
And for the unspeakable joy and relief of being held by the one she thought was gone forever.
As the snow drifted down and the valley fell under the hush of winter, she cried, and Xavi never faltered. Never flinched. Only held her tightly enough to ease her pain, stroked her hair, and when her tears were gone, cradled her face between his palms.
“What I said to your family… I meant every word,” he said. “Even if I did not know it at the time. Now that I am free, I do wish to make my home wherever your heart is. To support and protect you for as long as you would have me.”
“Even,” Ryn said with a wobbly smile, “if my home is in a library?”
“Well, someone has to keep you safe from cats and overzealous librarians. From the monsters you cannot help but draw, and the perils of your unquenchable curiosity.”
This could not be true. It had to be just another part of this strange dream.
“And what if there are no monsters?” she asked in a small voice.
“What if all I want is a man to sit beside me? To enjoy small things like a good book and a perfect cup of tea. Someone who will never make me feel foolish or small for the things that I care about. Who will love me for my mind, and not in spite of it.”
Xavi brushed the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs.
“Wherever you wish to be, whatever you wish to do, that will be my home as well. Whether it is monsters or tea parties or balls. It is only you that I want. Your beautiful mind, your unflinching courage, and your fierce heart. I love them all, and I would not wish away even the smallest piece of who you are.”
He wanted her. Of all the impossible dreams come true, this fierce warrior of myth, this legend come to life, had chosen to keep on living—to embrace all the possibilities of hope—because of her.
“And you do not mind that I sometimes draw when I should run? That I consort with mercenaries and am too free with my name and sometimes love myths and legends more than a comfortable life by the fireside?”
“Why would I mind that?” The corner of his lips began to curl into the faintest suggestion of a smile as he pulled the pencil from the untidy knot of her hair and ran his fingers through the wheat-gold waves that tumbled over her shoulders. “After all, what am I if not a legend?”
Ryn laughed in spite of herself and reached up to wrap a strand of his own white hair around her finger, hardly daring to meet his eyes.
“Xavi, I feel like I dare not blink or even breathe, because if I do, this might all go away. But I have to ask you if you’ve thought it through—whether this is truly what you want. I don’t know how long my life will be. And you… You have so many years ahead of you. What if we…”
He tugged her forward and placed the gentlest of kisses on her forehead, sparking a rush of tingling heat that spread from that gentle touch of his lips to flutter wildly in her chest.
“You know by now who I am, Ryn. Once decided, I do not turn aside from my path, and my allegiance once given is given forever. If you choose me, you may also choose to form a soul bond, and just as with Kel, it would likely extend your life many years beyond what you might otherwise expect. But even if you do not”—he met her eyes earnestly—“you will be safe with me. Safe until your very last breath.”
It was a vow stronger than any she’d heard uttered by husband or wife. More true than any ceremony or ritual. She would be safe. Not only her body, but her heart, mind, and soul.
Safe. Beloved. Home.
“Then yes,” she said simply. “I do choose you. And I choose to bond with you in whatever way is possible, because I don’t want to miss a single minute. Not a single day, nor any one of the years we might be granted together.”
Xavi did not hesitate even for a moment, but caught her up in an embrace that left her gasping. And then, before she could even begin to breathe again, his fingers wound through her hair, curled around the back of her neck and tilted her face upward to meet his kiss.
It was scorching fire and scouring wind, and it set her body ablaze even as it swept her thoughts far, far away from the memories of pain and loss to a place where there were only the two of them. Only the strength of the arms that held her, and the wild, unstained beauty of a love returned.
It was a love she could never have written for herself, or even dared to imagine. More strange than myth, more impossible than legend. But true all the same.
And unlike the books she loved so much, where this legend came to a close, another story began, and she could not wait to begin writing all the chapters that came after it.