A sharp inhale cut through him like a blade.
“She was… light,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Hope made flesh. And I lost her when I needed her most.”
Her voice softened. “How?”
Another beat of silence.
“I put her somewhere she should never have been. I thought I could outwit the gods. I thought… she could be the bridge between broken realms.”
"But something went wrong?” She attempted to fill in the gaps, brows furrowing.
He gave a single, shallow nod. “Horribly.”
She searched his face. “You blame yourself.”
“Partly.” He winced.
“But you’re not telling me everything.” She moved closer.
His jaw flexed. “No. Not yet.”
They stood there, time suspended.
“I’m not her,” she said at last. “You know that.”
“No,” Alarik whispered. “You’re something far more...”
He didn’t elaborate. The words stayed lodged like thorns behind his teeth. He wanted to say more. To expose Kael as the liar he was. But seeing her standing there, eyes alight, burned through his icy resolve.
She stepped forward again. Just slightly.
Their shoulders brushed and she jolted moving away.
She didn’t invite him in. He didn’t ask.
But as she turned and closed the door behind her — his palm stayed hovering in the space where she had stood, aching.
The sea was cruel. The gods crueler still.
And if he lost her to either… he wasn’t sure what part of him would be left.
Chapter forty-five
Forgotten Land
-Maris-
The cliffs rose like the broken teeth of a god, black and jagged against the late-morning sun.
From the deck, Maris felt the air become heavy. As if the island itself had exhaled after centuries of silence and was now watching.
The Hollows.
The very name curled in her mind like smoke.
A place the goddess had whispered about in dream light. A place where the rivers ran dry. Where the sky forgot its name. Where the gods had first touched land and bled.
She swallowed, hands gripping the ship’s railing tightly.
