My clit pulsated from that heated threat alone, and I knew, whenever I removed the rune, it would be short order before I was pregnant.
“Did you sleep well, my little love?” Rohak cooed, patting her back with his massive hand. “I missed you while you slept.”
Fia blinked slowly, loudly expressing her frustration at her nap ending. She was a crabby thing when she first awoke, not unlike the grouchy man who currently held her tight.
I smiled slightly as I reached for the books beneath the cart.
“What are you two doing this afternoon?” Rohak asked, his attention on the baby, but the question was aimed at me.
My hand strayed on the cover of the golden book we’d taken from Isrun. More and more lately, I felt what I could only describe as a pull toward the blank tome, as if it were begging for me to fill its pages with words and runes.
I tapped my fingers lightly against the cover as I spoke. “We’d like to take you to lunch in the courtyard since it’s so nice outside today. You need sunshine and air”—I fixed him with a no-nonsense look when he made to interject—“but then I think we’ll come back here. I . . . something about this is compelling me.”
“You need to write,” he said simply. “It’s meant for you to write, Faylinn.”
I sighed with a frown.
“And what would I write, Rohak?” I asked tiredly, rubbing my hand down my face. “All I know is love and death, war and its aftermath.”
“Then that is what you write, my love.”
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Seven
Folami
The water lapped lazily against the dock, the gurgling sound a balm to my broken soul. I’d repaired this dock with my own hands after Solace’s forces destroyed it weeks ago. After the initial reunion with Itanya and our return to Alvor, I did whatever odd jobs I could to stay busy.
No one was interested in training for war anymore—the survivors were exhausted and reasonably disenchanted—so my skills with a spear were unneeded.
Lex and Ilyas found their place quickly, easily meshing into society as they worked to calm the population that emerged from the caves and returned from the plains.
Alvor was a shell of what it once was, the people rightfully scared and wary of what happened and what was to come.
I’d accompanied them one day, hoping to be of some help, but my morose mood only served to bleed Lex dry faster than normal. The guilt I felt over consuming his Pleasure Magic when it was made for the citizens of Alvor had me fleeing to the safety of our temporary home, embarrassed beyond belief.
Itanya, in her newly given infinite wisdom, had fixed me with a blank, unseeing stare before instructing me to find Talamh. “He’ll send you where you need to be,” she’d said cryptically, which was how I found myself repairing the docks.
It was mind-numbing manual labor, but I felt calmer near the water, as if I was closer to Peytor’s spirit somehow.
I talked to him as I worked, telling him of Itanya and the world now thatSolace was gone. It helped ease the ache, but it wasn’t the same as having him here with me.
I knew Lex and Ilyas felt it, too, but there was little time for us all to talk about it after a day filled with both emotionally and physically exhausting labor. The times that we did get together, we took solace in each other’s bodies, moans and slick thrusts saying more than our words ever could, yet there was a gaping, obvious hole where Peytor should be, even if we tried to cover it as best we could.
I sat on the dock, dipping my bare feet into the icy water as the sun retreated behind the horizon, sending shoots of vibrant purple and pink across the heavens before it winked out with a flash of green, allowing the moon to take full residence in the sky.
There was something comforting about the dark in Alvor, the way the moon shone and the millions of stars glittered in earnest. Brilliant swaths of blue, green, and purple danced above, only made visible by the retreating sun.
I craned my head back, eyes fixed on the sky, as I breathed out through my nose.
“I miss you, Peytor,” I finally said, breaking the reverent silence. My toes swung back and forth in the water, creating a quietslooshwith each pass. “More than all of the stars in the sky. You were my best friend and confidant when neither of us had one. You were my rock and touchpoint when I felt most lost. I—” My voice broke. “I don’t know how to go on without you. I love Lex and Ilyas, but they are only a piece of me. You . . . you hold so much of me, and that part of my heart died with you. It’s buried beneath these waves, Peytor, and I want nothing more than to reach out and take it back, to be whole again. But I know that will never happen. I gave that chunk of me to you willingly, and I could never take it back.”
I sighed, my legs stilling in the water as I closed my eyes.
“I wish you were here with me. I love you,” I whispered.
My eyes flew open at the sound of something large moving through the water, and I pulled my legs out and underneath my body in a flash. There, on the dark horizon, was something swimming through the waves.
Uncertainty and fear built in my gut, my palms sweating at my lack of weapon.
