But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. My fingers—what remained of them—clutched at Heinrich even as the bones began to blacken.
I’m afraid.
My lungs collapsed, filled with fire instead of air. My heart—my stubborn, foolish heart—stuttered and slowed, each beat weaker than the last.
Let go. I will catch you.
I stared into the flames and saw so many things.
I saw a soldier who no longer had nightmares, lulled to sleep by a gentle tonic. He held his young son on his lap, smiling.
I saw a women I’d helped end a pregnancy that would have killed her, now playing in wildflowers with a healthy baby.
I saw Greta riding in the back of a wagon with a young shepherd, smoke rising in the distance as they fled to the south.
And I saw myself, thirteen years old, hiding beneath an oak tree with tears streaming down my face. She looked up, and I saw her for what she truly was—just a frightened girl in a world full of far too much sharpness. We locked eyes across time.
I forgive you. It was never your fault.
There was a great exhale through the cathedral, and I realized there was no coming back. Darkness snaked around me, soft and inviting, and the last thing I felt was Heinrich’s lips pressing against my ruined forehead—my final absolution.
And then I was falling.
The void rushed around me, stars streaming into thin lines as I fell faster and faster. Above me, a golden light grew farther and farther away—shrinking to a pinprick, then to nothing at all.
What had once been unbearable heat was now infinitely cold, as if the fire had never existed, as if every comfort and ounce of myself had been stripped away.Home.I felt the word deep in my heart. That was where I had fallen from, where I would never see again. Loneliness threatened to consume me, and tears slipped from my eyes, freezing to my cheeks before they could fall.
Then a great flaming comet shot forth from the disappearing golden portal, hurtling straight toward me. As it drew closer, a great pair of flaming wings spread wide, followed by another, and then another. Six wings of fire and starlight, just as the prophets had written, just as I had seen in the cathedral’s burning heart.
He reached a hand out to me, and when I grabbed it, our palms were a perfect match. I let him wrap me in his arms, warmth spreading everywhere he touched. His features swirled into starlight and the deepest void, the fires of Heaven and Hellboth flaming along his skin. He was beautiful. He was terrible. He wasmine.
He gripped me tighter as I felt myself being pulled apart, unmade and remade in the space between breaths. Then his lips collided with mine, and I tasted eternity—ash and honey, sorrow and joy, every prayer I had ever whispered and every sin I had ever craved.
Be not afraid, I felt his voice say—not heard but known, written directly onto my soul.
And for the first time in my life, I was not.
We hurtled toward the earth at an unimaginable speed, but he held me, and I knew I was safe. The ground rushed up to meet us, and when we struck, everything went white and silent. I felt the impact in my bones, felt the earth crack and give beneath us, and then there was only darkness and the steady beat of his heart against mine.
Chapter 28
Katharina
Apple blossoms.
The scent hit me first, sweet and fresh as spring. The smoke cleared, and I stood not in the burning cathedral but in an orchard in full bloom. Soft grass cushioned my bare feet. Sunlight filtered through branches heavy with pink and white flowers, and somewhere, a stream babbled over stones.
Heinrich stood before me, but not as I’d last seen him. His cassock was gone, replaced by simple clothes—the kind a farmer’s son might wear. The kind he might have worn before he took vows, before war drove him south. Before any of this began.
“Where—” I started, but he pulled me against him, and I forgot words entirely.
This kiss was different from all the others. Not desperate like that night against the oak. Not dark with possession like after he’d changed. This was tender, tasting of apples and new beginnings.
When we parted, I saw him truly—just Heinrich. The silver had left his hair, the lines of exhaustion smoothed away. He looked as he might have at twenty, before the weight of the world bent his shoulders.
“Is this real?” I whispered.
He wiped his thumb across the back of my hand, the gesture sofamiliar it made my chest ache. “As real as anything ever is.” He gestured to the orchard around us. “This was my family’s, before the war.” He paused, his gaze searching. “Or perhaps it’s a different garden, where another woman chose knowledge over ignorance.”
