Page 176 of Fallen Nocturne

Blight keeps talking. I can hear her voice, bright and wandering, bouncing from one thought to the next the way she always does. She continues listing every reason Landon and I belong together, but her voice fades into meaningless noise.

I need to focus on reviving Arescaine. I bend over him again and press both palms against his chest. I summon every fragment of blessing left inside me, forcing it into his motionless body until my arms begin to shake.

“Please live,” I whisper. “Please, Arescaine. Please.”

“Rhianelle,” Blight says in a less playful voice. “I have a confession to make.”

She lowers her head and scuffs the toe of her shoe through the dust, suddenly looking more like a guilty child than an ancient goddess.

“I took something from you,” she continues, and she sounds sheepish now.

On any other day, I would have smiled and entertained her strange games and endless mischief. She is a goddess after all, and I have learned it is safer to humor her than not.

But what does it matter now?

What does anything matter if Arescaine is gone?

No.

I press my hands harder against his chest, forcing the blessing deeper, refusing to let it slip away.

Arescaine is not gone. He cannot be gone. I will not let him be gone.

“I’m sorry. But seeing you now...” The little goddess trails off. “I think you should have it back.”

Blight touches my forehead, and the world explodes.

Memories come rushing back. Lost and found and mine.

They come rushing in like a flood, drowning me in moments I had forgotten I lived.

Arescaine and I in the cottage, his hands gentle as he braids my hair. Arescaine and I dancing in the snow. Svenn and I in bed, his body wrapped around mine, whispering promises in the dark. Wait… Svenn?

Arescaine is Svenn.

My husband.

“I love you, Rhianelle.”

“I love you too, Svenn. Always.”

Our wedding returns to me in fragments of silver and moonlight.

The forced ceremony with the elders, officiated by Balthazar… and the real one in the forest under the stars. It’s just us and Coral and the moonlight.

His hands holding mine. The wonder in his eyes when I spoke my vows. The soft tremor in his voice when he answered with his own.

“You’re my wife,” he’d said, sliding the wedding ring onto my finger. A ring I don’t remember having. A ring I—

I gasp and look down at my hand. There is a ring on the finger I believed had been bare for months.

The ring itself is a simple woven vine, enclosed within a gleaming silver setting.

It was always there.

I just couldn’t see it.

More memories flood in.