This spell didn’t want strength. It wanted truth. A naked heart. A soul without crown or command. One open and exposed, willing to take on any and all burdens.
I would do this.
The fire cracked behind me. Farris breathed softly. The bond burned.
There was nothing left I wouldn’t give.
“Is that it?” I asked the silence.
The book answered, bleeding one final line across the bottom of the page, slower than the rest.
“To make the passage, the bonded must surrender their essence. Empty the pool of magic and allow the beloved’s shadow to drink. Only in sacrifice can true love find the way.”
I hesitated. Not because I didn’t want to give everything, but because I’d never known if my love was enough, if giving each piece of me guaranteed anything at all.
What if I held my heart out to her, and she couldn’t reach back? The thought turned my bones to stone. My hand hovered over the book, feeling useless. I could burn kingdoms, face the fates themselves with my head high, but I didn’t know if I could survive diving into her world and finding her gone.
What would be left of me if she had already flown? If I lost her, I'd be a man exiled from his soul.
My stomach twisted.
Bare the heart. Touch with truth. A shared memory. And then surrender.
I stared at Reyla. Still breathing. Still here.
I’d give everything if I had to.
It wasn’t relief that slammed into me. It was panic. Hope hadteeth, and it had sunk them into my throat. I might lose her no matter what I did.
The dragon mark on my forearm flared.
“If it’s a journey through your heart,” I whispered, my voice only for her. Evermore for her. “I will walk it gladly.”
Heart slamming up into my throat, I whispered, “I don’t have anything left to prove, Wildfire. It's always been about you.”
No throne. No crown. I was just a man stripped down to nothing.
Curling tighter around her, I made a single shape of our bodies. The book lay open on the blankets, firelight flickering across the pages. Her exhalations fluttered against my collarbone.
This was it. Act or prepare to mourn. No crashing storms. No enemies at the outer wall. Just this single moment before a battle without swords.
One I had to win.
For her.
For us.
“Reyla Jarrn Weldsbane, now of Evergorne Court.” My soul remembered how to say her name, even when my voice broke. “And Lorick Thorne Damaris Shadowhart Evergorne.” The words quavered in my throat. Deep in my heart, I was not a king or an heir. Just hers. Lorick, the man who failed too often to say the right thing, but who had never failed to love her with every ruined part of himself.
Love didn’t want warriors. It wanted believers.
This would be the final step off a cliff while trusting the wind to catch me.
I let go. Into the unknown. Into whatever waited on the other side of a shadow built from sorrow.
Magic stirred low in my chest. I drew it upward as an offeringbefore thrusting it all out, leaving nothing left but me. Heat and light poured out of me in a soft flood. I sent it through my palm resting over her heart. Through the bond winding between us.
I closed my eyes…
