"I am sorry," I whisper. "That I did not wait for you. I tried. But when Sevrin offered me nothing after Mysin harmed me, I could not stay. I would not have survived it, and neither would they."
"You think I would hate you," he murmurs. “After everything you carried alone?”
He pulls me gently into the bed beside him. The blankets shift around us as I rest against his body, the warmth of his skin meeting mine after months of distance and cold.
His lips brush my shoulder. Another kiss follows along the curve of my neck. He rests his forehead against my skin. "I love you," he murmurs.
I turn toward him and kiss him.
The kiss is slow and deep, filled with the long ache of the months we spent apart and the relief of finding one another again. Whenit ends I remain close to him, my cheek resting against his shoulder.
Colsar's hand drifts to my stomach. "Our children," he says softly.
"They helped bring you here," I say. "Loosening the wards required magic. Blood recognition. And theirs flows through mine. It was enough for the wards to know you. Enough to let you pass if you came."
He holds my eyes. "There is no circumstance where I would not have come, Asharin."
I should have let the moment remain there, whole and untouched. But truth has never stayed quiet between us for long.
"There is something I did not tell you," I say.
He stills against me, not pulling away, only listening.
"When I left Veynar, when I was on the ship," I say, "I thought you were dead. I thought the children were gone as well. I could not feel anything." The memory comes back cold and clear. "For a while, I believed there was nothing left to hold me here. I jumped in the water and waited for the undead to take me."
His arm closes around me at once. "Asharin."
"I did not fight it," I say. "I did not want to." My hand covers his where it rests against me. "They are the reason I remained."
His grip changes, stronger, steadier. "As long as I breathe," he says quietly, "you do not make that choice alone."
"I know," I whisper.
"There is more," I add softly.
His hold does not loosen.
"I nearly lost them before that," I say. "After Mysin attacked me."
The words rest between us, quieter now, but no less real.
"They are all going to pay, Asha Bear," he says quietly. "And as for us. I will never leave you again."
"I know," I murmur. And in the quiet warmth of the chamber, with dawn rising beyond the windows and his arms still wrapped around me, the life we fought for finally feels possible.
Lirien
SEVRIN
The Past
The Massacre at Telly's Tavern
The night of the tavern massacre, when Asharin was found bleeding on the floor, Sevrin had arrived. Too late for it to matter. He had watched them look for her amongst the burnt and bloodied corpses and something in him had answered. The thrum in his blood, dormant for years, came back all at once. Old, certain, and entirely unwelcome.
He had not bothered with Morrath in over a decade. Sentinel Ivernet handled the provinces. The gate stayed closed. He was a king, not a creature. He had his court and his council and his brother's army and none of it required the darkness his father had spent a lifetime building and that Sevrin had spent his own lifetime pretending he did not inherit.
He would not be that.
