The fae still trail behind us, while my mother walks to my left and Wick to my right. He hasn’t spoken again since he asked me to not take her.
And I don’t know what’s right. I don’t know if the right answer is to lay her to rest here in her homeland or if it’s better to take her back to Orea. But I’m still walking toward the bridge. Still refusing to make a decision.
Unable to.
Because if I choose and that decision lands here, then I have to stop walking that much sooner. I will have to set her body down and give her to the earth. And when I do that…
I will have to let her go.
I suddenly stop. The tread of my boots sinks into the ashen ground just as much as my stomach, while the sharp scrape of realization flays me open.
Because this is it.
After this, I will never hold her again. Never be able to look upon her.
I will never be able to feel the satiny lengths of her ribbons or brush away a lock of her hair. I will never hear her laugh or see the way her expression brightens with joy. I’ll never hear her say my name or feel her heartbeat thrumming against my touch.
I won’t feel the curve of her waist or be able to tuck her against my shoulder. Never see the way the sunlight glistens against her skin or how the moon dapples her burnished cheeks.
Thousands of nevers that will stack, one by one, and suffocate me.
The moment I let Auren go, I lose her forever.
Souls are eternal. It’s why the finality of death feels so wrong. Why our hearts break and grief strikes. So while death may be common, it isn’tright. It isn’tnatural.
Her soul is supposed to be with mine for all of eternity.
I swallow hard, eyes burning as I look down at her. My heart was rotted before, but now it lies split and ruptured. Just a gaping organ in a useless chest, the golden scale over it nothing but a torturous taunt.
One glance at the horizon, and I know when I climb this slope, the bridge will be in view, and I will have to decide. Here or there. Annwyn or Orea.
My knees hit the ground. It cripples me and holds me in place, right here on the dead soil.
“Slade?” Wick says carefully at my side. He doesn’t come too close. Doesn’t risk my severed pair bond lashing out at him.
“I can’t,” I say again, the same thick confession that I spoke hours ago.
My mother crouches down beside me. Slender hand stroking my hair. I look over at her with burning eyes and a scoured throat. “How can I?” I ask, though I know she won’t talk back, even though I’m desperate for the answer.
How can I possibly let Auren go?
“What was the point?” I demand, my voice a furious sob. “What was the point of any of it, if I was just going to lose her?”
Her lips turn down. Her eyes fill up.
“What was the fucking point?” I heave out.
My mother lifts her hands, placing one at my heart and one at Auren’s. Over one that’s split, and one that’s still. She doesn’t speak, but her eyes and touch say plenty.
This. This was the point.
To love her.
The tension in my shoulders finally rolls out, and I slump, my head hanging in heavy misery.
I can’t let her go…
But it isn’t about me.
