She returns to me then, rising onto her toes to press a kiss against my cheek.
“I will see you soon,” she murmurs, softer now.
Then she slips into the cabin, the door clicking shut behind her, leaving only the whisper of her warmth in the space she’s abandoned.
A stifling silence stretches between Solena and me.
“Well, that was fucking awkward,” Zyphoro drawls from above.
Solena and I both glance up to where she’s perched on the railing, her legs swinging lazily, expression entirely too entertained.
“Looks like everyone has some explaining to do.”
I exhale sharply, running a hand down my face.
This ship suddenly feels far smaller than it did before.
Chapter 22
Amara
None of this feels real. Not being free of Anethesis. Not being back in Daed’s arms. Not staring down at this tiny, perfect being who curls her impossibly small fingers around mine, as if she already knows me, as if she belongs to me in a way no one else ever has.
She is flawless. And I should know, I have checked every inch of her. Ten fingers, ten toes. Two ears, their tips delicately pointed. Eyes gray as the storm. A head thick with dark hair, so much like her father’s. She is more of him than me in features, and there is no doubt in my mind that she will grow into the same impossible beauty. But her skin… her skin belongs to the Grove. To the ancestors who know the forest as well as they know their own heartbeats.
And I will take her home.
I will lay her beneath the old trees and wait, and I will pray that the Souls will speak to her, that they will claim her as their own. She may be a child of two worlds, but I will make sure she knows mine first. The only one that ever loved me. The only one I still trust. Because the Fae… the Fae have given me nothing but pain, and I will not let them do the same to her. Even her father, for all the love I have for him, has not changed that.
She stirs, taking a deep breath, wriggling against her bed of soft furs in her barrel crib. Her grip on my finger slackens as sleep pulls her under, her tiny belly full and round with milk. Carefully, I tuck her in, smoothing my palm over her silken hair.
I shift, stretching to ease the stiffness in my back from being hunched over as I fed her. It’s the only pain I have. I don’t remember how I did it, or why, but I’ve healed myself. Somehow, I spared my body the agony most women endure after bringing life into the world.
It feels selfish.
I stole that suffering from myself, and part of me wonders if I should feel more grateful. Who wouldn’t want to recover from childbirth in moments instead of days or weeks? Still, guilt lingers beneath the relief. A quiet whisper that says I didn’t earn this the way others have.
With my daughter asleep, I wander across the cabin, taking a seat at a dresser in the corner. I let out a slow breath and reach for a comb, dragging it through my hair, untangling knots and thoughts alike. The ship rocks gently, the waves slapping against the hull in an endless, soothing rhythm. This quiet, this normalcy, it feels foreign. After Driftspire. After the torment. Afterhim.
Ronin.
The name slithers into my mind, unbidden, unwelcome. When did I start calling him that?
The Golden Son was easier. A title steeped in hatred, something impersonal, something monstrous. Something undeserving of sympathy. But somewhere between freeing him and Daed pulling me from the void, the title lost its power. It no longer fit. He had shown me another face. And that face had a name.
It still feels strange on my tongue, and I spit it out as much as I speak it.
But he is not the stranger he once was.
It seems no one is.
I don’t mean to dwell on the way Solena and Daed looked at each other. It was nothing. Or at least, it should be nothing. He is mine, and I am his. But still. The way she wouldn’t meet my eyes. The way his name sounded on her lips.
The comb snags on a tangle, yanking me back from my spiraling thoughts. I tug sharply, as if I can pull the unease from me the same way.
Just as I have been with Ronin all this time, so has Daed been with Solena.
And where just a moment ago I’d brushed off Daed’s jealousy as foolish, now I’d give anything to be a fly on the wall in the cabin next door.
