He’d tied me to him with magic and blood and fire, and I should have wanted to rip that golden thread apart and run.
I didn’t.
I was warm.
“You are mine now.” His hand found my face, tilted it up to meet his eyes. Black as void, deep as wells, and the gold thread pulsed brighter when our gazes locked.
“By blood and bone. You cannot leave this castle even if you wanted to. You cannot fade while I live. You are tethered to me, and I do not intend to let go.”
His thumb traced my lower lip. Came away stained with his own blood.
“So,” he said. “Now that you’re not dying. Tell me everything.”
Wrapped in furs, warm and anchored, I told him about the life I’d had before. Merchant’s daughter. Comfortable, if not wealthy. A father who’d loved me and an aunt who’d hated the love he’d lavished on a daughter instead of her.
And the rest. The poison, the grave, the petals, the three months of fading. He listened without interrupting, his gaze fixed on my face, his expression unreadable.
When I finished, I pulled out the bone box. Opened it. Showed him the two dried flowers that remained.
He took the box from my hand and examined the petals with those endless eyes. He hadn’t interrupted. Hadn’t asked questions. Had just listened, his stare fixed on my face, his expression unreadable.
“You suspected,” I said. “From the beginning. You said you noticed.”
“I noticed you were wrong.” He shifted on the bed, and the furs rustled around us.
“I didn’t know what kind of wrong until the hunter, until I watched you drain him dry and realized you weren’t just cold, you were hungry. Starving. The kind of desperate that makes creatures do things they’d never do otherwise.”
“And still, you did this.” I gestured at my chest, at the warmth humming there, at the golden thread that bound us. “Tied yourself to me. Why?”
He was quiet for several moments. The fire crackled. A raven called somewhere outside the window, its voice harsh and knowing.
“Because death sent you back,” he said finally.
“You should have stayed in that grave and faded months ago when the last of your living heat burned out. But you didn’t. You clawed your way out of the earth and walked across half of Alia Terra and stood on an auction block in a room full of monsters, and when they asked you to choose, you chose me.”
He leaned closer. His breath was warm on my face, and the golden thread brightened between us.
“Death doesn’t make mistakes, little bride. If it gave you back, it had a reason.” His lips brushed my forehead, gentle, almost tender. “And I intend to find out what that reason is.”
“What if there is no reason?” My voice was small. “What if I’m just... wrong? A mistake? A thing that shouldn’t exist?”
His laugh was low and dark. “Then we’re well matched. I’ve been called all of those things since the day I was born.”
He pulled back, and his eyes met mine, dark and endless and somehow, impossibly, warm. “Death sent you back for a purpose. You want to know what I think that purpose is?”
I nodded.
“Me,” he said. “I think death sent you back for me.”
The fire had died to coals. The room was cold and dark and filled with shadows. And I was warm, wrapped in furs and blood and the arms of a monster who looked at me with reverence.
I closed my eyes.
And for the first time in three months, I slept.
OLWEN
For days I dozed, finally resting, learning my new body all over again.
