He licked my chin and pressed his face into my neck.
Tears smarted in my eyes, and I kissed the top of his head.
“You survived her, Farris. You survived, and you chose to keep your heart open. You're the best. The absolute best.”
I was the one who'd forced myself to lead, to charge into the fray when others hesitated. I'd always felt I had something to prove, when only now did I realize that they hadn't expected anything but what I was willing to give.
The only person I had to prove my worth to was myself.
Farris and I carried the same wounds, just in different ways. Both of us were afraid to become something broken. Both of us were trying to outrun ghosts—his of the monster he'd nearly been forced to become, mine of the failure I feared I already was.
“What we are is good enough,” I told him softly. “We don't have to be perfect. We just have to be brave enough to keep choosing love. It always was enough. It always will be.”
He licked my chin again, then slipped off my lap and scampered around me, yipping with joy.
My sweet, fuzzy friend. My fellow survivor.
We eased away from the pool.
Dorion and Laphira came closer, both of them quiet, their eyes focused on the pool a short distance away.
“I don’t believe it shows truth,” he said. “Not really.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Farris paused as if he was listening too.
“It doesn’t care about memories or the now or the future,” he said, frowning. “It reflects where you feel the weakest.”
“I think it wants something from us but not our magic or our blood.” Laphira paused, thinking. “A reckoning.”
“You’re right. It's testing us,” I realized. “Not just showing us our fears, but forcing us to acknowledge and accept them. Only then will it tell us how to break the curse.”
Had I finally accepted my fear? I hoped so.
Laphira stared at the pool, watching something I couldn’t see. “What if it sees through our masks? The parts we hide from everyone, even ourselves?”
Dorion’s jaw shifted. “That could be the key forward. Maybe it’s waiting for honesty before it tells us what we need to do.” His gaze sought Lore’s. “Aricor broke something that was much bigger than we knew. Whatever’s bleeding away will continue to leach until there isn’t enough left to repair.”
“The curse fed on our individual wounds,” Lore said. “Prager’s magic found the cracks in each of us and widened them. To break her hold, we have to heal those fractures first.”
I studied the pool, still and quiet now, but buzzing all the same. Heat crawled under my skin.
Lore stepped closer, his throat working with his swallow. “It’s Evergorne’s scar, and I suspect an Evergorne king needs to heal this gaping wound left by my ancestor.”
“All of us do.” Dorion glanced toward the scales on the wall. “Aricor didn’t only break the magical object, he broke the bond between our courts. Yet we’re all here now, and we can mend it.”
“We can.” Laphira stretched her hand out to Dorion, and he linked their fingers.
“I’ll go next.” Lore stepped up to the edge, and his reflection stretched across the pool. For an instant, he looked thesame, my gorgeous, strong, ruthless husband. Beautiful in a way he’d never believed.
The image trembled. Two versions of him began to peel apart, and I could not breathe. No. I couldn’t let it split him again. I reached for him but…
One image flickered tall and noble and crowned with firelight. Pride and pain shone in his eyes. The other bled shadows. They clung to his back in rotted, blackened wings. His blade hung low at his side, but it dripped with something darker than blood.
Lore stared, his face tight. The tic in his temple told me he wanted to look away but knew he couldn’t.
Rising, I went to stand by his side. I was here if he needed me.
