I tilt my face up towards his. “It’s weird being out here, isn’t it?”
He opens one hazel eye to look at me. “What do you mean?”
“We were always locked up together,” I explain. “At Ljómur, our life was behind those walls… inside that tiny apartment. A living room, that ridiculously small kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom. That was all we had. Our entire world was four rooms.”
“It was enough,” he whispers as he tugs me closer, mindlessly running his fingertips over my ear. “You know that, don’t you? That it would’ve been enough for me?”
I nod, my cheek rubbing against his shirt. “We were isolated in that world together, and then you were gone, and it felt so much bigger without you there. There were so many times I’d look for you in the reading chair or reach for you in the bed.Everything was suddenly too big. The couch, the table… even the shower.”
I get quiet for a moment as he silently traces patterns over my skin.
“I would’ve given anything to keep you,” I whisper.
He presses another grazing kiss to the top of my head. “I would’ve given anything to stay… but now I understand why I couldn’t.”
“He would never have stopped hunting for you,” I say. “When I found out you were in Atlanta, I was terrified he’d see you and somehow recognize you. That he’dknow. After everything they did to me, I couldn’t be sure if my mark would’ve told me. Every morning, I woke up frozen with the fear you’d be caught and taken from me for good.”
“He didn’t find out, though,” he says as his chest rises in a deep breath. “And now the world is as big as we want it to be.”
“My house in the village is just as small as our apartment. I didn’t want more of those empty spaces.”
“We’ll fill them,” he promises, tilting my chin up so he can press a kiss on my lips. “And it’ll be enough.”
Bash
Xeni’sbreathissteadyas he lies on my chest, his arms hugging my stomach and his legs woven through mine in a tangle that feels like the most natural thing in the world. My arm fell asleep an hour ago, but I can’t bring myself to move it. He’s sleeping so peacefully, with his face relaxed in a way I haven’t seen in far too long.
The sun has passed its midday high and begun its slow descent toward the horizon, but we have hours left until it’s safe to leave this place.
Sakane and Ego are curled up in a ball together in the shadows, their breathing soft and even. Cato leans against a thick trunk with his eyes closed, fingers still wrapped around his knife and ready to spring into action. Sovran sits on a rock near the treeline, his posture unnaturally straight as he scouts into the distance, ever vigilant.
I don’t think it’s fully hit me yet—the sheer expanse of this wide-open place before me.
The sky stretches endless and unconfined. It’s a vast, unbroken canvas of blue and gold that makes the city walls feel like a distant dream. Possibilities hang in the air, just as unlimited, whispering that maybe, for the first time, the horizon belongs to us.
My entire life has been spent within the walls I was assigned, and boundaries defined every aspect of my existence.
I grew up in Denver, a city far from here with walls just as thick and a military just as vicious, but it was home. A loving set of parents in a clean apartment, and opportunities many weren’t given. Teachers saw my aptitude for science and placed me in a selective college program, but it wasn’t long into my studies before I was plucked away and sent to Ljómur.
More walls there. Higher ones, with compounded risk.
Until it, too, became my home.
Then I was snatched from that life and dropped into a city I’d never set foot in before. Everything was strange, everyone a stranger. I was handed a bag of coins and a pack of supplies, given a contact to get me a new identity, and left in the crowd, still reeling from the shock of being separated from my mate.
I had been without a home for the first time in my life.
Then I’d met Cato and been dragged into his band of misfits. They eased that burden but never fully took it away. As much as I’d tried to turn Atlanta into home, it couldn’t be.
Not when my home was a person.
I glance at Xeni.
We’re so small against the endlessness, and that loosens something in my chest… something that’s been clenched for years. The ground beneath my feet is solid, real, and mine to walk.
No orders, walls, or cages, just sky and space.
Just us.
