“I was ejected from the Memory Gate after reliving my own worst memory, just as Alize was,” I said. “If I appeared after that, it was some work of Zeph.” The God of Memory.
I paused as recognition passed over her face, though she kept her eyes closed. It was one of her strategies for fending off the overload of sensory input. I could not imagine what it must have been like to live a lifetime of human senses, only to be resurrected with those of a witch. Had no one helped her adjust? Taken the time to care that she struggled? I knew the answer to those questions. The head witch had seen her struggles as weakness.
There was not a single part of Koryn that was weak.
I did not need to know what had happened to her in the Memory Gate to know that.
“Believe me when I tell you that I have many memories that ought to compete for the worst in my life,” I said, using the fact that her eyes were closed to devour every detail of her face. She always wore her emotions freely, but like this, she was totally unguarded, and I could savor her without making her uncomfortable. I could also watch her reactions.
“But I knew what I would see when we faced the Memory Gate. I knew it would be the moment that I saw you for the first time. Before that, you were hypothetical. I understood you only in the context of what it would take to save my mother. But when I saw you fight those two men in the street, when you spared their lives… I knew that I had made a mistake.” My throat threatened to close over those last words, but I forced them out because Koryn deserved to hear them, even if it hurt to admit.
Her pale throat slid. She scrunched her eyes together. Fighting back tears. A wave of emotion. She lowered her chin, soslowly at first that I thought I might be imagining it. But the soft flesh beneath her chin trembled. She was fighting for control, again. If I reached for her, would she accept my offer of comfort?
She uncrossed her arms, spreading her palms across her bent thighs.
“I believe you,” she said softly.
It was not forgiveness. I did not deserve or need forgiveness. If she understood my devotion to her, if she believed my words… those were nearly as good. Maybe, just maybe, it was enough to move forward.
Her chin still trembled. Then, as I watched, she clenched her jaw. Her fingers dug into the crushed velvet of her gown, her fingernails carving out half-moons in the luxurious fabric. But her eyes were smoothed, no longer fanned by worry lines. She’d reached some sort of decision.
Cold tingled in my fingertips. The temperature of the room dropped in a way that made no sense for how small the space was and how close together Koryn and I sat.
Power.
As I watched, whorls of sparkling ice formed on the backs of Koryn’s hands. The long sleeves of her gown covered her arms, but a moment later they appeared along the exposed tops of her breasts, swirling upward along her graceful neck.
I yearned to reach for her. But the Lifebind on the inside of my wrist seemed to tingle, too. It told me that if I touched Koryn now, she might shatter. No matter how much I yearned, I would never put my wants above her needs.
I clenched my fists into balls against my own thighs, trying to summon the control that had served me so well for the past twenty years, but always seemed to elude me around my Lifebind. Across from me, Koryn’s mouth opened, her breath forming a puff of cold air as the confession fell from her lips.
“I killed my sister witch.”
I held my breath. Commanded every muscle to be still. For months, we’d given each other mere slivers of ourselves. But now, Koryn was carving open her own chest.
“It is the reason I was cast out from my coven. I broke one of the sacred covenants. There are only three. And I broke one,” her voice cracked. “I killed McKean to save Kyrelle.”
I recognized neither of those names, but that was not important. Koryn’s eyes were still closed. Even the hardest words were easier to say in darkness. The tremble in her chin spread to her chest. This person, Kyrelle, was important to her. Further proof of the heart whose existence Koryn loved to deny.
“The young woman who attempted to enter the temple in Canmar, before the Mercy Gate,” I finally said, when Koryn did not speak again.
She’d told me of her briefly, in the moments before the Sacrifice Gate as we watched the others meet their fates, though she had not given her name or explained their connection.
Koryn nodded. “She is my elder sister’s last living descendant in Velora.”
She was also the reason that Koryn had entered the temple. At least, in part. Her head witch had already made her offer by then, but would Koryn have accepted it? Yes, my aching heart told me. Her longing for acceptance was so great that she would have entered the Seven Gates eventually.
“You saved her,” I said. Both at the Mercy Gate, and before when she’d been cast out from her coven. But I did not make the distinction. If Kyrelle was the last member of Koryn’s family in Velora, it meant she’d been taking care of others for a long time. Centuries.
And she still questioned her own goodness.
“She came to the coven lands looking for me, desperate for another spell. She was captured, of course. Intruders always are.And then,” Koryn’s voice broke off. She opened her eyes as a tear escaped from the corner. My fingers ached for her.
“You did what you had to do to protect her.” I believed that, fiercely. No matter what the covenants of her kind demanded, there was right and wrong, and three hundred years of death and evil had not managed to erase that distinction for Koryn. Pride surged in my chest. It was a privilege to love this woman. It would be my life’s goal, however long it was, to make her realize that.
Koryn dragged in a ragged breath. “My allegiance is supposed to be to my coven.”
“Because they have been so loyal to you?” I countered.
