I feel the unseen change. It’s a sudden completion of my soul, a connection to something so powerful, dark, and lovely that for a moment, I can only gaze at Maven with profound obsession closing up my throat.
My love.
We’re not bound again—not yet—but I don't need to hear her thoughts to see everything I’m feeling reflected on her face.
My muse smiles at me.
That's it. I can’t stand not touching her for another second, so I vault over the bronze-dusted altar to dip Maven, kissing her deeply as her fingers tangle eagerly in my hair.
The moment her hands are on me, a new, strange feeling buzzes pleasantly through me.
Peace, I believe they call it.
Her tongue teases mine as my heart pounds. I nip her lower lip before straightening to rest my forehead against hers.
“Do you have any idea the things you did to me without even a pulse in your pretty neck?" I demand breathlessly, reaching up to cradle her face.
“If it’s any consolation, I loved you just as obsessively from Paradise.”
I freeze, trapped in her eyes as a dangerous dose of obsession spikes my blood pressure. “Repeat that for me, love.”
“When my purpose was fulfilled, I went to Para?—”
“Not that. The other thing.”
The far more important thing.
Maven knows what I want. She has the same slightly uncomfortable expression she used to get whenever people became too emotional around her, but she meets my gaze, understanding how important this is to me.
“I love you,” she whispers. “In life or death or in between, you're all mine.”
“Oh, my dark, twisted, darling,” I laugh darkly, nearly swaying from the elation of those pretty words. “Brace yourself. You’ve no idea the monster you just created.”
She grins as if that’s the best news she’s had all day, kisses my chin, and takes a deep breath as if to brace herself.
“Time to get out of here. I’m shit at holy magic so far, so hold on.”
Holding on to her will never be an issue again.
A moment later, glowing light floods my mind, I can sense something shatter, and we’re both suddenly yanked out of the nightmarish spell I’ve been tangled in for what feels like years.
I wake up.
The only times I’ve woken up in the past happened after getting knocked unconscious. I’ll certainly be waking up this peacefully more often now that I have the option to sleep whenever Maven is resting. Shaking off slumber is a foreign feeling, and it takes me a moment to find that I’m flat on my back on a marble floor, staring up at the ceiling of the high temple of Arati.
“She better be right behind you,” Frost’s voice warns crisply nearby.
Sitting upright despite the weakness in my limbs, I frown at the way my head feels. Is waking up always this…cloudy?
Taking in my surroundings, I see that Maven is unmoving beside me. Limbo is weighted down so heavily around her that I tense, checking her pulse.
My muse is breathing, but she's in one of the deepest sleeps I've ever seen. Exhaustion from whatever she just did to free me has her practically anesthetized.
Crane sits in the closest pew, head down between his hands as he mutters at the voices he hears. Still, he's far more coherent than the last time I saw him in his iron enclosure.
Frost moves from leaning against the temple wall to adjusting the collar of his coat six times as he watches Maven with growing concern. I grew accustomed to his notable scar in the months following the Upheaval, but I was extremely numbed then. It certainly makes for an impression now.
I’m distracted from his face by nearby growling. Leaning back and squinting, I get a better view of Decimus chewing on the arm of a wooden pew. He’s not himself, but seeing him here and shifted out of dragon form is a relief.
