Then I stopped.
I turned back to Shayde. He was lifting more packs, readying them for the other warriors. But his eyes found me again. Words tangled in my throat, but I forced them out—the truth he never expected. Thunder cracked above us as we held each other’s gaze across the distance.
“I forgive you.” My voice rose, straining against the storm. “This is me saving you when you can’t see that you need it.”
The rain began to fall as I walked away.
Chapter 57
“Hey, D. Wanna play a game?”
I could practically hear Doryan’s eye roll. We’d been sitting in silence for over an hour, watching the rain quicken its rhythm. He knew this was my favorite place when storms came—high in the mountain peaks, tucked inside a small cavern, where I could watch, listen, and feel my connection to the water.
The Hollow had been woken in the dead of night by alarms after another breach in our wards. We fought the Tyrians back again, but this time… this time we bled for it. Too many of our people were lost. The battle had been chaos, a bloodbath—and not the kind I could stomach.
It rattled me more than I wanted to admit. I’d spotted my sister among the survivors, but the look in her eyes after seeing the carnage had driven me to flee. I vanished into the mountains with River. Not before I emptied my stomach, shaking with the weight of it all.
When the rain started, we made our way back. River dropped me here—knowing this was where I go when storms break—and left to rest.
Doryan clapped a hand on my shoulder, giving me a shake. “Don’t stay out here too long, Fitz. Get all the rest you can. I’ll see you on the field.”
I flipped Doryan the middle finger as he walked away. He returned the gesture with a sharp grin. Tomorrow we march for Mageia. We march for war. And just the thought of it pressed down on me until the weight was almost unbearable.
I whipped around at the sound of approaching footsteps, ready to fire off a smart remark to Doryan—but my heart squeezed when I saw who it really was.
Shayde was walking toward me in the rain, clad in a fresh set of leathers. His hair was wet, slicked back from his face. He would fly out with the other fire elementals before daylight, while the groundborne units rode on foot.
“Doryan said I’d find you here,” he said, ducking his head beneath the stone lip and climbing onto the narrow platform beside me.
“I’ll have to remind him not to share my business,” I muttered.
Shayde pulled his knees up, rested his arms on them, and gazed out at the rising water. The rain was building now, nearly deep enough to spill into the pool I always came here to watch. When the water reached just a few inches, the pounding rain would dance across its surface—and soon, the entire clearing before us would transform into a magical display of elemental beauty.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
His words rooted me in place. I lifted my eyes to his, and for a long moment neither of us looked away.
“For everything,” he whispered. “But not for what we had. I could never be sorry for that.”
“And what if I want you to be?” My voice came out weak, completely at odds with the stoic edge of my words.
Shayde slowly shook his head, a soft grin forming. A dimple surfaced—and my eyes locked onto it. “Then you’ll just have to hate me a little more,” he said. “Because I won’t let those moments go. In my twenty-two years of life, I’ve met no one who matches me like you do, Fallon. Our time together may have been short, and it’ll never be enough for me, but if you need to hate me… I’ll let you.”
My eyes burned. I blinked hard, willing the sting away. “I don’t hate you.”
Shayde stiffened beside me.
“I just don’t know how to forgive you,” I whispered. My voice cracked on the last word.
“And I’d never ask you to do something you didn’t want to do.”
His face softened, but I could see the shift in his expression—the careful way he masked the disappointment. The truth. My heart screamed to tell him the rest. That I wanted to forgive him. That it wasn’t just him—I didn’t know how to forgiveanyone.
Because I’d never really let anyone that close to my heart before.
We sat in shared silence as the rain fell harder, pooling at our feet. The soothing sound of the element did nothing to calm my crumbling heart. My traitorous mind fast-forwarded to tomorrow—when we’d be locked in battle with Tyria. Shayde Wylder was more than capable as a soldier. But what if…
What if I lose him beforeI get the chance to—
