When at last they broke apart, gasping—
Blue.
His eyes were blue.
Confused. Dazed.
“Auryn? What — what was — are you alright? I felt you call for me.”
His voice. Low and deep, filled to the brim with his gentleness and love.
It crushed her.
Broke her.
She crumpled. Tears spilled hot, unstoppable. Her hands clutched his face, shaking. “You were gone,” she sobbed, voice raw. “You weregone, Kail—I couldn’t find you—I thought I lost you—I thought he—”
Kailorien caught her against him, stunned at first, then holding her so tight it hurt. His chest ached at the sounds of her sobs, because she had never broken like this. Not when she bled. Not when she fought. Not when the world collapsed around her.
This was different.
This washim.
“Little one,” his voice cracked, melting into her hair. His arms wrapped around her, rocking without thinking. “I’m here. I’m here, starlight.”
“Vargrún,” she cried. “He took you. Your body. Your eyes. I called and called but you—weregone. You weren’t there…”
The words reopened an ocean of scars in him. He’d failed her before. Many times. Wasn’t there even when heshould have been. Hadn’t protected her when she needed it. Yet of all those times, this was the worst.
“I swear it—I won’t leave you. I won’t let him take me from you.”
Her sobs only deepened. “He spoke, Kail. He spoke asyou. He’s been listening all this time. He knows everything—heknows.”
His breath stuttered. The truth of it sank heavy into his bones. He pressed his lips to her temple, his mouth thinning into a tight line.
“Then let him listen,” he whispered fiercely. “Let him hear me swear it—you’remine, Auryn. Mine to protect. Mine to keep safe. And no monster, no rune, no shadow will ever change that.”
She shattered in his arms. Not weeping the way she sometimes did, quietly, in private. Not with trembling shoulders that could be calmed by a kiss or a whispered vow. No—this was different. Auryn’s sobs raked raw through her chest, shaking her whole body, her hands clutching him over and over as though he was dissolving right before her eyes.
He had seen her stand against death, stitch the very sky back together, bleed with a steady jaw and a defiant glare. But now—now she wailed in his arms as though he’d already been buried.
And it undid him.
“Little one… Auryn'reh…” His words tangled, spilling, anything to soothe. He pressed his lips to her hair, her temple, her brow, still rocking her as though motion alone might settle her. His thumb brushed tears but they came faster than he could wipe them away.
Still, even as he melted for her, another part of him spun—why?
How had this happened?
Vargrún was always there. Always waiting, always lurking, but never like this. Neverarticulate. Never stepping through him with words thatbelonged only to the shadows. Kailorien’s control had never slipped without intent or powerful stimulus—not once.
So how?
He forced his breaths steady, for her, but his mind ran hot beneath the calm. Had something shifted in the runes? Had the delay between campaigns stretched him thin enough that Vargrún found a crack? Had proximity to Auryn weakened his guard, opened a door?
He remembered nothing. One blink, and her tears were wetting his skin, her sobs burning his chest.
And the way she’d cried—“You weregone.”
