“What happened?”
For a moment, I think he won’t answer. Think he’ll deflect or change the subject or pull away.
But he doesn’t.
“Dagda,” he says quietly. “The god who forged the Cauldron. He’s been hiding in the borderlands as a bartender for gods know how long. And he is Tadgh. When I was trying to reach you, when I was bleeding through every barrier Moros built, he pulled it out of me.”
That old bastard. Tadgh. The Daghda.
My stomach drops. “Pulled it out?”
“The Cauldron isn’t just magic, Ash. It’s physical. It lived in my chest. Against my spine.” His hand finds mine, presses it flat against the scar tissue. “He ripped it out. Said they needed it for something. Didn’t ask. Didn’t warn me. Just—” He makes a sound that isn’t quite a laugh. “I woke up on a bar floor with a hole in my chest and a god telling me it was necessary.”
“Orion.”
“I couldn’t heal after that. Not properly. Couldn’t do half of what guardians are supposed to do.” His voice goes quiet. “Couldn’t reach you. Couldn’t protect the scouts in the eastern quadrant. Couldn’t do anything except bleed and burn and hope you were still alive on the other side of walls I couldn’t break.”
I don’t have words. Don’t have anything that could possibly be adequate for what he just handed me.
So I press my lips to the scar instead. Feel him shudder.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper against his skin. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”
“You’re here now.” His arms tighten. “That’s the part that matters.”
I want to argue. Want to tell him that my being here doesn’t undo the month of damage, doesn’t bring back the Cauldron, doesn’t resurrect scouts whose names he never learned.
But his heart beats steady under my cheek. And his arms hold me like I’m something worth crossing death forests for.
Something worth losing a Cauldron for.
“Orion?”
“Mm?”
“Did I really taste as good as you imagined?”
He laughs. Surprised and warm and so very him. He pulls back to look at me with those amber eyes that have finally gone normal again.
“Better.” He presses a kiss to my forehead. “So much fucking better.”
Every instinct says pull away. Put the walls back up. Remember where we are and what’s hunting us.
I don’t move.
The thought surfaces anyway, uninvited and dangerous:
What if I stayed this time?
29
Ash
“Auntie,”a small voice prods me awake.
I yawn as I blink my eyes open. I should see the night sky. Branches swaying in the wind. Stars twinkling overhead.
I see none of that.
