Right.
We continued over the warm, glowing graveyard, the blue canopy fighting the moon’s light for dominance. A little further out, the Eternal Forest met a border of lightless evergreens. Alexei steered us toward that dividing line and dropped us between the towering trunks, weaving through the two radically different environments.
One moment, I felt warm, cast in a blue hue, a slight hum vibrating across my skin. The next, my nose and ears stung from the cold. But I smiled through the strange ride, enjoying the contrast until we landed in the Eternal Forest.
Alexei set me down on a carpet of lavender blooms, which stretched far and wide and mixed with orange moss. I couldn’t get enough of the sight or smell. Their light, sweet scent soothed part of the ache in my chest—and my nerves.
“He should be out there.”
I lifted my head to Alexei. He pointed at the dark spot through the gaps in the trees.
“You’re not coming with?”
“Nope. I already apologized and got thrown off the cliff.”
I worried my lip between my teeth. “Is he going to throw me off the cliff?”
“I highly doubt it. But if he does, just scream ‘beautiful,’ and I’ll catch you.” He winked.
That didn’t reassure me in the slightest. What was I even going to say to Ronen? How did I approach this?
I took one step forward, then another. The guilty sensation eased the farther I walked, but my heart rate increased.
Eventually, the forest opened to a flat expanse of snow-speckled rock, leading to the cliff I’d fallen from and to the silhouette of Rune and Ronen.
I stopped.
His magnificent black wings unfurled from his muscular back, stretching wide, a breathtaking span of power and grace. The deep, onyx feathers shimmered with a blue sheen, kissed by the forest light. They were sleek, radiating strength, much like every line in his body.
When he leaned into the wind and fell off the cliff, I held my breath, watching as he sliced through the air, his wings snapping open to carry him into the sky.
He flew high, then low, spun, and dived. At one point, his wings disappeared completely, and he plummeted. My eyes widened, and I dug my nails into my hands as he sped toward the ground.
When he passed the cliff’s edge, I sprinted out into the open.
But of course, I had nothing to worry about. He snapped open his wings and banked up, the moonlight catching slivers of his tattooed back.
It took a second for my raging heart to settle. Then he did it again, and again, like it was some kind of game.
It was funfor him.He seemed to enjoy every second in the air. And it wasn’t just the playful way he flew that made me know he loved it, but Rune’s swishing, happy shadow-tail and her perky, tilting head as she watched him.
This was his.
The illuminated space. The open air. The beauty I imagined he witnessed when he flew over the lake and trees. This was all his.
A place where he came to unwind and be free from the obligations of being a general, and whatever else the king made him do. A place his friends left him alone to think and be himself.
It was just him, Rune, and his gorgeous wings.
And I was intruding.
He noticed me when he lowered back toward the cliff's edge. Rune did a second later, whipping around and barreling across the few yards separating us. She knocked me off my feet, straddling my entire body while she smothered me with her stinky slobber.
I laughed, trying to dodge her large tongue.
“Okay, yes. I missed you too, beastie.”
She continued to lick even as I pushed her head away. Ronen snapped his fingers, and she finally stepped off me, but my face was a casualty of her saliva.
