“Marilynn?” I ask in astonishment. “Did we…”
“We were the ones to create the prophecy, weren’t we?” Dessin finishes for me.
Marilynn downs her drink. She takes three long seconds to respond.
“And now you know everything I do.”
Dessin and I lock eyes in disbelief.
“It was us?” I speak.
My husband gazes into my eyes with so much love, it spills over into my body, spreading an everlasting ember of heat to my fingertips and toes.
“It was always us.”
Our children, friends, and grandchildren smile and continue their side conversations. And Dessin secures his rough hands around the sides of my face to kiss me fiercely.
“Thank you, Skylenna.”
“For what?”
He kisses me again and leans his forehead against mine with closed eyes.
“For giving me this miraculous life. This family. You are my soulmate in life and death. Now let’s tell our story.”
82. The One True King
Skylenna
Eight Hundred and Eighty Years in the Past
Time is finally catching upto the only beast I ever believed could outrun it.
Even legends grow old, though none of us ever thoughthewould. Once fierce enough to take on a Dralutheran, DaiSzek now struggles to get up from his favorite spot on the dining room floor.
After decades of protecting our children, guarding our home, and comforting Dessin and I through gales of nightmares, flashbacks to the war, and debilitating seas of depression…our boy stayed by our side through it all. Even through one last war from an entirely other world that Sapphire asked us to fight in as one last favor to Dellilian—but that is a story for another time.
A snowy dusting of white fur overtook his chin, brows, and chest. And even in old age, though he limped from the crucial injury from the Dralutheran, DaiSzek still ran. He’d huff and groan as Dessin took him downstream for a bath, attempting to play and knock my husband off his feet. We brushed his shiny black fur every day, snuggled him at night in our bed, and cut up his food when he had a hard time eating.
I’ve never heard of an animal aging so gracefully. I’ve never heard of a wolf lasting longer than two decades at most.
DaiSzek has lived for more than sixty years.
After half a century, Kane and I began to believe he would live forever. That eternity flowed in his veins from the ferociousness of his bloodline.
He eventually stopped eating the finely cut meat Kane would prepare for him. The scent of lamb filling the air with its steam, untouched, sent an ache so sharp to my chest, I had to look away. The first time our sweet boy turned his head to the side to reject the meal was when I knew…
What broke my heart more was that Kane refused to accept it. He would prepare different meals. Lamb, rabbit, pheasant. Even the freshly baked blueberry muffins filled with jam that DaiSzek used to sneak off the countertop.
He’d turn his head and rest his chin on the wooden floor.
I let Kane process it without a word. His hands shook. He stared down at DaiSzek, half dissociating, half crumbling to pieces in silence.
On a Sunday morning as the sun rose behind the tree line, Dessin debated with himself in the light misting of rain. He paced down the halls of the Dellilian Castle DaiSzek once galloped through with more distress than the day we were locked up in the Vexamen Prison.
And I didn’t have to ask.
I saw the devastating conflict written across his face. The dark shadows under those stunning brown eyes. The lack of sleep weighing down on his posture.
