Chapter 32
Revelations
Itold him everything.
It took most of the morning. He did not interrupt. By the time I finished, the light had shifted and the room felt different, smaller somehow, the way rooms do when the things that have lived inside you for months finally find somewhere else to be.
When I stopped speaking he pulled me closer and held me there, his hand at the back of my head, and said nothing at all. It was enough.
The chamber is quiet again by the time I rise from beside him. The fire has burned low and the room smells faintly of smoke and clean linen.
"I want to lie beside you," I tell him softly.
"Yes."
The answer comes immediately, without hesitation.
I reach for the ties of my gown. The silk loosens beneath my fingers and slides from my shoulders until the fabric gathers loosely at my arms.
And then I stop.
The dress hangs half fallen while I stand beside the bed, my hands caught in the silk.
"Asharin."
His voice is gentle but attentive. "What is it?"
I shake my head. "Nothing." But the word sounds wrong even to me. When I still do not move he shifts higher against the pillows despite the bandages drawn tight across his ribs.
"You stopped," he says quietly.
I lift the gown slightly and show him the gold marks on my thigh. "There was no healer on the ship," I say. "That is what they did to clear the infection." A pause. "I stopped counting at nine when Mysin and his men stabbed me repeatedly.”
Something in my chest breaks loose. And for the first time since all of it, I start crying.
Really crying. "I kept waiting for you," I say.
"Every day. I kept telling myself you would come.
" My hand moves to my stomach. "I was so afraid I would have to do this alone.
That you would not make it. That our children would grow up never knowing you. "
His expression breaks open.
"He is a siakar," I say quietly. "Your son. He will need you to teach him."
For a long moment he does not speak. Something moves through his face that has no name, something that breaks open slowly and does not close again. His eyes drop to my stomach and stay there.
When he finally looks back up at me there is nothing controlled in his face at all.
He draws me closer until I stand within the circle of his arms. "I crossed the world because I had to believe you were still alive somewhere ahead of me," he says, his voice rough. "I did not know if you survived. I did not know if the child we made endured the journey."
The silk slides from my arms. Colsar finishes removing the gown himself, drawing the fabric gently downward until it falls to the floor.
His thumb brushes lightly over the gold marks on my thigh, taking them in the same way he takes in everything else about me.
His expression holds no pity. Only care.
"I am sorry," I whisper. "That I did not wait for you. I tried. But when Sevrin offered me nothing after Mysin harmed me, I could not stay. I would not have survived it, and neither would they."
"You think I would hate you," he murmurs. “After everything you carried alone?”
He pulls me gently into the bed beside him. The blankets shift around us as I rest against his body, the warmth of his skin meeting mine after months of distance and cold.
His lips brush my shoulder. Another kiss follows along the curve of my neck. He rests his forehead against my skin. "I love you," he murmurs.
I turn toward him and kiss him.
The kiss is slow and deep, filled with the long ache of the months we spent apart and the relief of finding one another again. When it ends I remain close to him, my cheek resting against his shoulder.
Colsar's hand drifts to my stomach. "Our children," he says softly.
"They helped bring you here," I say. "Loosening the wards required magic. Blood recognition. And theirs flows through mine. It was enough for the wards to know you. Enough to let you pass if you came."
He holds my eyes. "There is no circumstance where I would not have come, Asharin."
I should have let the moment remain there, whole and untouched. But truth has never stayed quiet between us for long.
"There is something I did not tell you," I say.
He stills against me, not pulling away, only listening.
"When I left Veynar, when I was on the ship," I say, "I thought you were dead.
I thought the children were gone as well.
I could not feel anything." The memory comes back cold and clear.
"For a while, I believed there was nothing left to hold me here.
I jumped in the water and waited for the undead to take me. "
His arm closes around me at once. "Asharin."
"I did not fight it," I say. "I did not want to." My hand covers his where it rests against me. "They are the reason I remained."
His grip changes, stronger, steadier. "As long as I breathe," he says quietly, "you do not make that choice alone."
"I know," I whisper.
"There is more," I add softly.
His hold does not loosen.
"I nearly lost them before that," I say. "After Mysin attacked me."
The words rest between us, quieter now, but no less real.
"They are all going to pay, Asha Bear," he says quietly. "And as for us. I will never leave you again."
"I know," I murmur. And in the quiet warmth of the chamber, with dawn rising beyond the windows and his arms still wrapped around me, the life we fought for finally feels possible.