Chapter Fifteen
He worries. His distress split between two different women for two entirely different things: one drowning in despair and the other too beautifully optimistic to admit that loving him—staying with him—is bound to drag her into those same depths.
ALASKA, UNITED STATES
The room is dark, a single candle burning on the nightstand. It casts long, flickering shadows along the cave walls. Anna waits until they’re curled up in bed, warm and wrapped in each other, before she speaks. “Will she be alright?”
Under her cheek, she feels a stutter in Khiran’s sigh. “I want to say yes, but…” His words trail off, but Anna doesn’t need them to understand.
The pain in Kaia’s scream will haunt her for lifetimes. In it, Anna heard the echo of her own fears mirrored back at her—a glimpse of what the future could hold if they aren’t careful. Her hand curls against his chest, searching for comfort in the steady beating of his heart. “She loved her.”
He covers her hand with his own, his thumb brushing over her knuckles.
“She used to say they were soul mates. That, even though Eira refused to speak to her, they would always carry a piece of each other.” He turns his head, lips brushing her crown as he murmurs into her hair. “That piece of her died tonight.”
Tilting her face, she studies the heaviness in his answering stare. “I’m sorry you had to be the one to tell her,” she whispers. He looks so fragile in this moment, as if the weight of her words could break him.
He breathes a sigh so soft, it aches. Gently, his hand lifts to her brow, fingers tracing the shape of her face.
“It felt like I was mourning her all over again,” he confesses, his eyes shutting as he presses his forehead against her own.
His voice is fragile—riddled with a pain she can feel echoed in the hollow of her chest. “Anna… I cannot lose you. I couldn’t bear to live in a world that doesn’t have you in it. ”
She wants to assure him, assure herself, that he could.
That it would hurt, but he would still have a life waiting for him after the pain settled into an ache.
She wants to, but she doesn’t. How can she, when the fear of losing him is crippling?
Instead, she holds him close and lets the sound of his heartbeat soothe the fears she’s afraid to speak out loud.
Kaia doesn’t leave her room for four days.
Khiran brings her meals and sits with her.
Anna wanders the cave system as far as she dares to pass the time.
Sometimes she hears Kaia crying, the sound of her heartbreak echoing off the walls.
Anna can feel it in her heart, a crushing weight on her chest, as her own grief answers back.
It’s a strange kind of torture. Anna thought she was done mourning Eira’s death, thought she had come to terms with never seeing her again, but Kaia’s despair reignites her own.
The pain she thought she moved past creeping back with a choking grip, her throat tight and her eyes aching.
At night, she dreams of her.
Sometimes it’s an echo of a memory. Sometimes it’s a nightmare.
They all feel too real. Too close to the truth.
When she wakes, she’s dizzy with trying to comb through the tangled threads of memory and dreams. Some of them are so fragile, they break away like spider silk in her grasp—sticking to her skin, but unrecognizable.
A handful of splintered, tangled strands without a full picture.
She doesn’t know where one ends and the other begins anymore—doesn’t know where that line is drawn in the sand because the tide of grief has washed it away.
All she knows is that it hurts in ways she wasn’t prepared for.
Anna has had centuries worth of loss, but she had always been prepared for it.
Her eyes were open and her heart was guarded.
Every relationship she forged was tempered with the knowledge that it would only ever be temporary—a fleeting chapter in her everlasting life.
Eira was different, because Anna believed her story would last as long as her own. She had never considered the possibility of losing her when they had been gifted with forever. She’s still not sure which hurts more deeply—knowing time is short or never knowing to say goodbye.
On the fourth day, Khiran finds her curled up in the sheets of their bed with a book in her hand. “I want to show you something.”
Anna looks up from the yellowed pages. Kaia’s book collection isn’t nearly as expansive as Khiran’s had been, but there were a few she recognized and more she didn’t.
The tome she holds in her lap is leather bound, its pages whisper thin and brittle with age.
The graceful looping language is one she doesn’t recognize, but she was content appreciating the illustrations until she could ask Khiran to interpret it for her.
Leaning against the doorway, his arms crossed, Anna can see the fatigue lining his smile despite the warmth in his eyes. She frowns, closing her book with gentle hands. “But Kaia—”
“She was the one who insisted on it.” He pushes himself from the frame, crossing the room and cradling her face in his palms. For a moment he only stares down at her, searching, before leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead.
It feels like an apology. “You’ve been stuck here, alone, for the better part of a week.
I’ve been suitably reprimanded for failing to properly host in her stead. ”
Towering over her, he brushes the hair away from her face, fingertips brushing over her skin. “Besides,” he murmurs, his voice as soft as a confession. “I’m not certain my presence is helping anymore.”
Anna nods, understanding. In grief, there are times where being alone feels like being untethered. Sometimes, though, losing oneself in mourning is exactly what’s needed in order to face it. She sets her book on the bed. “Where are we going?”
“I thought I’d show you some of the connecting caves—help you get your bearings.” He flinches, his smile apologetic. “I realized you’ve probably avoided exploring them too closely for fear of getting lost in them.”
He’s right, of course. What little investigating she’d done had been kept close to the main branch of tunnels that connected to their room.
She hadn’t even trusted herself to try and find the kitchen.
His warnings about the tunnels had stuck with her and now, without his ring to tether him to her, she wasn’t willing to risk what getting lost in them might mean.
She follows him out of their room, their hands linked as he leads her through the maze of tunnels. Lights line the walls, their glow otherworldly. Ten minutes of walking, and she realizes that the temperature has risen, the air more humid. It’s the scent that gives it away. “Is that sulfur?”
“There are a few underground hot springs,” he confirms, eyes sliding to meet hers. “We can start there, if you’d like?”
“Is that what you wanted to show me?”
His laugh is breathy, spun of wishes and weak hopes. “Have you forgotten, Anna? I want to show you everything.”
In her chest, her heart gives an answering hum. “Is that what you wanted to show me today?”
“No,” he admits, gaze soft. “What I had in mind is a bit farther down.”
She gives his hand a gentle squeeze. “Let’s start there, then.”
He squeezes back, warmth in his answering smile as he leads her farther into the tunnels. She unbuttons her coat as they walk, the chill fading faster than should be possible. Another few minutes and she’s removing it entirely, draping it over Khiran’s offered arm.
“Are these tunnels…?”
“Kaia’s magic branches out differently than Eira’s. Her pathways travel the same distances, but they remain open.”
Anna frowns. “How does she keep mortals from stumbling on them?”
“They’re connected by water.” He tips his head, gesturing to the network of tunnels they’ve already passed through. “Dive deep enough, and those hot springs will lead you to Japan.”
No wonder she doesn’t have a problem with strangers roaming her halls. The entrances are too deep for most to find. Even if they did, very few would be foolish enough to risk entering an underwater cave without knowing what’s on the other side of it.
He takes a final right turn, the tunnel opening up into a yawning cavern and a large underground lake that looks deep enough to swim in, but it’s the light scattered like stars across the rocky walls, the reflection of them on the still water, that robs Anna of her breath. “How?”
“It’s not quite as romantic when you know the truth of it.” His eyes, dark in the dim, drink in her awed expression. Savoring her wonder, the way he promised he would. “Let yourself believe it to be magic for just a little bit longer.”
It’s not a hard ask. Anna is almost convinced that it is otherworldly. “It’s beautiful.”
His smile is soft as he kisses her knuckle. “Come, let us get closer.” Khiran leads them to the water’s edge, pausing only a moment before releasing her hand. He pulls his shirt over his head, leaving it to the rocky shore at his feet, before starting on the button of his pants.
Anna watches the way the muscles of his back and shoulders move and flex. “What are you doing?”
The pants join his shirt, leaving him in nothing but a pair of pinstriped boxers Anna recognizes as having come from the drawer in their borrowed dresser.
Not for the first time, she wonders if that room has always been his.
“Swimming,” he answers simply, casting her a look over his shoulder.
There’s a playful challenge in the way his brow rises, the corner of his mouth hinting at a smile. “Are you coming?”
She hesitates, her gaze lingering on the star dappled water. “Is it cold?”