I walk us through the deadlands, realizing they were a terrible omen right from the start. And when the long night gives way to a weak, gray morning, I still don’t stop.
None of the other fae do either. They continue with me in this quiet vigil, trailing behind like gathering shadows.
But one of those shadows finally comes up to me and places a hand at my shoulder. My storming silence and unfailing pace bursts open with the touch.
I snarl and whirl, feeling like a fae beast ready to rip apart anyone who dares come too close to Auren.
Wick instantly holds up his hands and takes a step back. “I just…where are you taking her?” he asks thickly, his eyes bloodshot.
“To the bridge,” I growl, panting hard. “Back to Orea with me.”
Wick’s eyes falter. “But this is her home, Ravinger.”
“And it fucking failed her, didn’t it?” I shout back in his face.
Wick grimaces in the leaden dawn, and his eyes go watery. “Fae will want to be able to pay their respects. To honor her here,” he says, his expression strained. “Please. I know she’s your paired, but she’s their Lyäri,” he tells me, gesturing to the throng of people who have stopped behind us. “She’s my family.”
“And yet,we all failed her too, didn’t we?”
Grief tightens his face.
“Yes,” he finally answers with a hard swallow. “We did. She was supposed to be our rising dawn, and we let darkness fall upon her.”
And that darkness will never end.
Even now, the sun hides behind a swathe of wrinkled clouds, as if it doesn’t dare show its face. As if it’s draped itself in a veil of mourning.
“Please don’t take her,” Wick says again, his voice low and pleading. “Let her stay here, in the world she was born.”
I glance away, teeth grinding.
I gnaw on grief and anger and emptiness, though I’m unable to swallow any of it down. Unable to digest it.
Indecision wars through me. I want to go down the bridge. To take her back to Fourth. Back to Digby. The Wrath. Keep her close for as long as I can.
I look back at the large group of fae that have followed. See flashes of their mournful eyes, their grieving faces all turned toward me. Toward her.
My jaw aches, throat closing. “I can’t.”
My confession constricts. I wait for Wick to argue, maybe even beg, but he doesn’t. Instead, silence spreads between us for several long moments until he breaks it with a quiet offering. “I can carry her for a while, if you need.”
The first instinct I have is to clutch her tighter, to lash out with anger. But I stop myself, because I know his intention isn’t to take her from me. It’s a gesture. One that offers to help me carry this monumental loss.
But he can’t. No one can.
Though I know they grieve, it will never be the same for them as it is for me.
Carrying her is the last gift I’ll ever get. The last chance I’ll ever have to feel her. I’m not ready to give that up.
How can I?
So I simply shake my head and turn, and I keep walking. Toward the bridge. Toward the end of Annwyn.
Toward the place where I know I will need to stop and make a choice.
But for now, I hold her.
The new day is held beneath a warped sky. No lavender light, no birdsong or fresh breeze. Just gray clouds above thatmatch the gray ground below, as the silt of the deadlands’ soil dusts me from knees to boots.
