“I know it.”
The slightest smile touched her lips.
He turned and she seized him, clinging with desperate strength. One last fierce embrace.
“Thank you, Tory Seraphim.”
He kissed her crown.
“Rest.”
Into daylight once more, salt and sea on his tongue, the wind warmed by the sun.
Gabriel rested against the fountain while Amerei sat before him, legs folded to one side, braid draped over her shoulderas she traced figures into the stone with chalk. A circle of Aerdanian children gathered around her, their laughter soft in the square.
She lifted her gaze to Viktor—and smiled.
“Take me home, Tory,” she called.
As if she already knew where his heart would lead.
Chapter Eighty-Three
Dunes Way
“I will live. I will not die.”
They arrived.
A path that wound through hills of sand. Knee-high grasses. Trees bending in the sea-wind.
Gabriel led them, knowing the way by heart. He tied his horse to the hanging oak at the bottom of the hill, near a trough filled with rainwater.
“I hear the ocean,” Amerei murmured, turning west.
Afternoon sun kissed her brow. The salt air tangled her hair.
“Just beyond those trees,” Viktor said, pointing.
His father’s house rose on the hill above, watching the sea. Beneath it, a forest of oaks bowed low. Untouched. Untamed.
He held her hand as they walked the path. Stones weathered by waves, sand in every crevice, fragments of shell scattered underfoot.
Issachar’s house stood strong against the wind, cedar planks silvered by salt and time. Its red clay tiles sloped gently, sunbaked and weatherworn. The porch posts darkened with age, smoothed where hands had leaned for decades. A wooden plaque arched above the door, driftwood carved with a single word:Seraphim.
Viktor touched the letters, his fingers tracing each groove.
Home.
The door creaked open.
“Father?” he called inside.
The kitchen table, hand-carved and sturdy, sat waiting, letters stacked in the corner. A low fire smoldered in the hearth, an iron kettle swinging above it, fragrant with spice and salt. Shelves crowded with jars of herbs and dried fish lined the walls. The air carried warmth—woodsmoke, brine, barley.
Gabriel quietly closed the door.
Viktor crossed to the window and glimpsed the sea.
