And then her world tilted as he spoke.
“Auryn’reh…” His breath caught again, as though he had to pull the next word from somewhere deep and guarded. “Solah.”
She stopped breathing.
And then he said it again, careful, as though all this time it had waited on the edge of breath for him to speak it.
“Auryn’reh Solah.”
The sound of it broke through her like sunlight on black water.Her true name.The first words she had spoken to him, breath steaming in the frozen air as he pulled her from the ice. She had never heard it spoken. Not once. Not from anyone, in this world or any other.
It was the first thing she had ever given him, and the only thing he had never returned—until now.
The moment wrapped around her like warmth from another lifetime. And she realized, with dizzying clarity, that she had not merely chosen him. He had chosen her, too. Every day. Every hour. Every moment since that fated meeting in the temple hidden away from time and memory.
“You are a vision,” he said. “Myvision. One I never want to wake from.”
The words left her before she could stop them.
“What if I am not enough?”
He pulled her up, kissed her lips, and then her cheeks.
“You are the stars above the world, the Nine Rivers running through its veins. You are the heart of me.”
Their noses touched. She smelled sweet wine on his breath. Minerals on his skin. Her magic, too, coursing through his veins. Her fingers traced Kenaz on his brow once again, mana pouring into him.
“Then let me pay homage to you,” she begged. “If there was ever anyone deserving of worship, of love, of everything I am—it is you, Kailorien.”
With that affirmation bolstering her courage, she kissed down his chest once more. Only when her lips reached the base of his stomach did he draw in a sharp breath.
Her eyes lifted, catching his, and in that moment, the air between them felt fragile enough to shatter. Her pulse thundered in her ears, the Bond catching that rush and sending it back to her in doubled waves, until she could barely tell which heartbeat was hers. She wrapped her mouth around his length, taking him as she’d dreamed of since the first time she’d ever seen this part of him. Every movement was unhurried, deliberate—as though she was learning the shape of him by memory alone.
He held himself still for her, though she could feel the coil of his strength beneath the surface—that tight, thrumming energy pressing at the edges of his restraint. The Bond surged and flared, his pleasure lancing into her core like molten light, spilling through her in a pooling of heat and need so fierce her knees trembled beneath the water. His hand moved as if to touch her, but she caught it, twined their fingers, and pressed it flat to the stone beside him—her silent way of sayinglet me.
“Starlight,” he rasped. The word wasn’t just sound—it brushed through the Bond like a warm breath at the hollow of her throat, making her skin prickle with awareness.
The sound he made next was low, torn from somewhere deep in his chest. She kept her pace steady, loving, her fingers tracing Raido on his thigh and Weaving peace into its core. The rune pulsed under her touch, its magic softening, yielding. Every line and curve within her reach was mapped with devotion. Veneration.
His grip tensed in her hair, and the Bond sparked with it, a rush of want so sharp her own breath caught.
“I must have imagined this a thousand times,” he gasped. “But never like this. Never.”
His hand curled into a fist at his side, the faint scrape of calloused skin against the stone betraying the edge of his restraint. A ragged sound slipped from him, part groan, part plea.
She hummed, taking him deeper, enthralled that she could make his voice thread like that. Fascinated as she watched his head tip back and his abdomen ripple beneath her palm.
The Bond snapped wide open, unbidden, unshielded. She felt it all: the flood of devotion so fierce it hurt, the bone-deep certainty that she was the only one who had ever touched him like this, and the unshakable truth that he would follow her into the Void itself. It was too much, too beautiful, and her throat tightened with it.
When he broke, the Bond went incandescent, her senses flooding with his release; the surge of heat, the quiver in his thighs, the helpless throb of his pleasure winding through her own body. Her eyes fluttered closed, and she lost herself in him. In his heady taste, his euphoric scent, and the silken brush of the hairs on his thighs against her cheek—each stroke carrying a pulse of his pleasure through the Bond like a warm ripple across her skin. Heat surrounded her. Like sinking into an ocean warmed by the sun. Never pressing. Always shielding. Protecting. Cherishing.
Just as she wished she could cherish him for the rest of her days.
Their eyes met, but they did not exchange a single word. Not even in the Bond. She simply guided him back into the water to rest against her chest and continued to Weave. Her hands traced every inch of him she could touch until his breath steadied again. Her fingers stroked his hair in the slow rhythm of undulating waves. Around them, Lustrals hummed. In the air, the thrum of the Shields buzzed, ever present. Auryn kissed the crown of his head, and at last, words found her again.
“I love you,” she told him. “While I live, you shall never be alone again.”
“Nor you,” he swore, his voice distant and soft with sleep.
