Chapter 13
Alina
From Stone’s Edge to The Barrow
The first time Dagan flies with me, I understand what it means to fall.
Not just in the literal oh God, we are very high up right now sense—though, yeah, there’s definitely some of that.
More in the way the earth just kind of gives way under your feet and you know you’ll never be the same again.
His arms lock around me, one beneath my thighs, one braced across my back. My front is plastered to his chest, under the cloak he wrapped around me when we left the field shelter.
His heat seeps into me, deep and steady, like a living furnace.
“Hold on,” he rumbles against my hair.
“As if I’d do anything else,” I mutter, looping my arms around his neck.
Then his wings unfurl.
And when they’re fully extended?
It steals my breath.
Dagan is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. And like this? He looks like some dark, avenging angel.
Obsidian-black feathers edged in storm light flare out from his back, wider than a truck, catching the moon-glow and the faint shimmer of the ley lines below us.
The air itself seems to hush, like Nightfall is waiting to see what he’ll do.
And then we’re airborne.
The ground drops away in a rush of wind and heartbeat and adrenaline. My stomach swoops, but his grip never wavers.
His muscles bunch and flex under my hands as he pumps those massive wings, lifting us off the earthen shelter, up past the cliff face, and out over the Rooted Marches.
I can’t help it—I sneak a peek. I look down.
The Marches stretch beneath us like a living map. Terraced fields curve along the hillsides, dark soil freshly turned, glowing faintly where Dagan blessed the seeds earlier.
Little farmsteads pinprick the landscape, their lamps lit with soft golden halos, like stars that fell and decided to stay.
Closer to the cliffs, quarries yawn wide and deep, veins of stone and crystal catching the moonlight.
The moon hangs above us, pale and glowing, watching over everything like some kind of peaceful god.
“It’s beautiful,” I breathe.
Dagan glances down at me, green-gold eyes molten. “You are.”
I roll my eyes, but my cheeks heat anyway. “Smooth.”
“I am Lord of Earth,” he says solemnly. “We are not known for smoothness.”
I snort, burying my face briefly against his neck to hide my smile.
He smells like stone dust, storm rain, and something warm and male and his that makes my brain go fuzzy in dangerous ways.
Below us, the Sowing Night celebrations are still in full swing.
We pass over a village square where people are dancing in circles around a bonfire, their shadows flickering over the packed earth.
Drums thrum a heartbeat rhythm that carries even up here.
Kids chase each other with glowing seed-pods that float and bob like tiny lanterns.
Someone sends a ribbon of spark-bright magic into the air; it spirals upward, twining through Dagan’s wingtip before drifting away.
He doesn’t flinch.
He doesn’t even look.
But I feel it—the way the Marches hum through him.
Like the whole land is plugged into him by invisible roots, and every heartbeat of it beats in sync with his.
With ours, a small, reckless voice in my chest adds.
Because today I watched him bless field after field—big rough palms laid against plow handles, barn doors, the very soil itself.
Farmers lined up with baskets of seeds, pressing them into his hands, bowing their heads as he murmured words in that rolling, ancient language.
I shook hands with more people than I can count.
Talked drainage and slope and water retention with women in dirt-stained aprons and men with callused hands.
Watched children sneak peeks at Dagan like he was some kind of rock star.
He kind of is, I think, watching him now.
“Proud?” I ask softly.
His arms tighten minutely around me. “Of what?”
“Of them. Of this.” I tilt my head toward the dark patchwork below us. “Your people. Your lands. Your everything.”
There’s a pause. For a second, all I can hear is the rush of wind and the steady whump of his wings.
“Yes,” he says at last. “Though I do not say it often. Pride can become complacency.”
“That’s not what I see,” I argue quietly. “I see people who trust you. Who feel… safe with you.”
He makes a low sound in his chest, like a boulder shifting.
“They are safe because I do not allow myself the luxury of feeling anything but vigilance.”
“Liar,” I whisper without thinking.
His gaze drops to mine, sharp.
My heart stutters, but I hold his eyes.
“You feel plenty, Dagan. I’ve had your emotions blasting through me all day like seismic waves. You can pretend you’re just stone and storm all you want, but I know better.”
Something in his expression softens. Cracks, even.
“Reckless woman,” he murmurs, fond and rough and way too gentle for my rapidly melting heart. “Do you always speak so plainly to Lords?”
“Only the ones who carry me around like I weigh nothing,” I shoot back.
He huffs something like a laugh, and the sound wraps around me almost as securely as his arms.
Then he offers me a mock glare.
“You weigh the perfect amount, Oona, and I will have words with anyone who says otherwise, including you.”
We angle toward The Barrow, built into the sheer face of the cliff ahead.
From this angle, it looks like the mountain simply decided to become a fortress—layers of carved balconies, window arches, and buttresses rising out of raw stone.
Vines cling to the walls, their leaves glowing faintly green, and enormous tree roots twist through the lower levels like the whole structure grew here instead of being constructed.
My new home.
The word still feels surreal. Heavy. A little terrifying.
And yet, they feel right.
Just like all of this—just like he does.
I think about meeting the other viyellas—and how wild it is that I’m suddenly part of this tiny Jersey-girl-in-Nightfall club.
Alaric’s whole grand master plan plays through my head again.
Drag human women here, trick the Fates, secure magical boons, save the realm.
Very tidy.
Very ruthless.
Very no feelings, just strategy.
Only… that’s not what happened.
They didn’t cheat the Fates at all.
They found them.
Their real matches.
Their fated mates.
You can see it when Jules looks at Alaric, when Phoebe rolls her eyes at Kael but still slides closer, when Delia touches Thorne and his wildfire calms instead of consuming everything.
Those bonds aren’t accidents or loopholes—they’re right. Solid. Inevitable.
And it makes me wonder—really wonder—if the boons were never the point.
If the extra power, the heightened magic, the stronger wards… if all of that was just the side effect.
Maybe the Fates weren’t being cheated.
Maybe they were giving Nightfall exactly what it needed.
And maybe—I swallow, thinking of Dagan’s hand in mine, the way the quakes go quiet when we touch—the same thing is happening to me.
Ever since I stepped into Nightfall, the ground has been talking to me.
Quietly at first—little nudges, warnings before tremors, a shiver under my feet that meant not there.
But after the shelter today, after Dagan channeled power through me to help hold the Marches together, it’s like someone turned the volume up.
I feel the land now.
Not just as an abstract thing I study and measure, but as a living presence. A patient, ancient heartbeat under my boots.
Earth on Earth had always been a puzzle to solve.
Here, she feels like an ally.