He presses his lips to my temple and holds me tightly.
My eyelids grow heavy.
The Barrow hums a lullaby I can feel more than hear, roots and stone and magic all whispering the same thing: rest, rest, rest.
For the first time in a long time, I let myself.
If tomorrow brings war, we’ll face it.
If Idris comes, we’ll stand against him.
But tonight, here in this impossible fortress with a Demon Lord wrapped around me and the earth itself cradling us both, I am exactly where I’m meant to be.
With him.
“Dagan?” I murmur, already halfway to sleep.
“Yes, Oona?”
“You better always come back to me,” I whisper, echoing my earlier promise, even though he’s not leaving. Not yet. “Always.”
He presses a kiss to my hair.
“Always,” he vows.
The bond settles warm and sure between us.
The Barrow sighs.
And in the deep, living quiet of Nightfall, with the Glowworm Moon still glowing faintly through crystal veins far above, I finally, truly sleep.
Chapter 23
Dagan
The Barrow
Morning comes too fast.
We gather in Jules and Alaric’s chambers—the most defensible rooms in the inner ring, deep in the Barrow’s heart.
The air smells like milk and tea, stone and steam.
Marcel sleeps in Jules’ arms, a scrap of dark hair plastered to his tiny head, while the others cluster close.
My brothers argue strategy in low voices.
“Idris will push again,” Thorne rumbles, fire licking at his fingertips. “He took Stone’s Edge for a reason. He was testing our response time.”
“And the weakness of our people,” Kael adds, eyes hard. “He always goes for the places that dream the brightest.”
Alaric stands at the foot of the bed, wings half out, just enough to shadow his viyella and their son. His face is carved in granite.
“We can’t keep splitting our forces,” he says. “If he hits the Vein again while we’re?—”
The thought does not finish.
The world moves.
