Her throat works as she swallows.
“Yes,” she says.
The word is not loud.
But it hits me like a fault line letting go.
My entire body rejoices.
The elder tree shudders, blossoms raining down around us in a soft, glowing shower.
Grass curls up around my knees like an embrace.
The Marches themselves exhale.
And I—who have spent centuries holding back—stop.
I rise in one smooth motion, closing the distance between us.
If I am wrong, I will be damned for it, but every root, every rock, every breath in this chamber screams at me that I am not wrong.
I cup her face in my hands.
For a heartbeat we just breathe the same air, her velvet eyes locked on mine, wide and shining.
The space between us seems to vibrate with energy, electricity—mutual attraction.
I can’t wait another moment.
With my next breath, I claim her mouth with mine.
She gasps against my lips, then melts into me, her hands clutching at my coat, fingers digging into my shoulders.
The taste of her hits like rich soil and fyrann and something uniquely, exquisitely Alina.
Heat streaks through my veins.
The zareth flares—white-gold, green, deep, dark brown—rooting into me, into her, into the ground beneath us like a lightning strike that decides to stay.
Earth rises up under our feet, sending us sinking gently to our knees in the purple grass.
It is soft, supportive, shaping itself to our bodies.
She breaks the kiss on a ragged breath.
“Dagan,” she whispers, eyes dark, pupils blown. “The ground is moving.”
“It answers to us,” I murmur, forehead resting against hers. “To you now, as much as to me.”
“Feels like it’s cuddling,” she says, a breathless laugh escaping her.
Gods, she is perfect.
My body hungers for her—has from the moment I first saw her standing over that crack in her world, stubborn and defiant.
But this is more than hunger.
This is recognition. Relief.
