“A baby?”he asked, his eyebrows raised.“Whatever promptedthat?”
“Apparently, Axel knew what my strange mood and your overprotectiveness meant.I was going to tell him he had it all wrong, but then I thought… it might be the perfect cover.”
There was fire in his eyes as he stepped towardher.
“We are quite the scandalous pair, aren’t we?”Fael whispered huskily.
She couldn’t—and he couldn’t.They couldn’t.The words repeated over and over in her mind as his closeness overwhelmed her.This was already too difficult, too complicated.There was nowhere for them to be together in all the ways that mattered.And yet...Axel had said he saw the way they looked at each other.
Heat rushed beneath her skin as Fael towered overher.
“Yes,” she responded breathlessly.“Though I imagine most think I could do better.”
He barked a laugh and tapped her nose before stepping back.When he turned and sat on the bed, she almost groaned—in frustration?Relief?She couldn’t tell; her head was full of fuzzy images of him pulling her close.
“We’ll have to move on before you’d be expected to show,” he said.“Though I’ll be honest—I’ve been considering leaving anyway.I love it here, but I’ve gathered all the information I can.We haven’t found anyone else with magic.We should search elsewhere.It may take a couple of weeks to solidify arrangements, but that should be the long-term plan, if you agree?”
Ren’wyn nodded.“I agree, though the thought of leaving Axel makes my heart ache.I love Delmor.”
Fael’s eyes grew pensive, as though he, too, could imagine staying.
For a moment, there was a vision between them: a small house with whitewashed stone, Fael teaching the garrison, and Ren’wyn taking partnership at the apothecary.Sharing a life.A home.Finally, finally letting someone into the deepest, most secret part ofher.
Gods, she could let Fael pierce her to her very core.She could give him everything.
But it was a future for someone else—not for two people on the run with nothing.The vision shattered.
“Not yet,” he said, shaking his head.“We have a safe place here, and I’d like to have a clearer heading.”His expression mirrored her sadness.
“Let me know what you need from me,” Ren’wyn said.“I’ll keep working at the apothecary.”
She left to change and clear her mind, then they walked into the darkening woods.She was weary to the bone.They couldn’t stay forever—though part of her had dreamed of it.
As she practiced, her sadness and unfulfilled desire hollowed out her core, making her connection to the Void feel dark and cold.She brushed at the shades—the ones she couldn’t settle or who were so old they no longer remembered their lives—and pressed them gentlyaway.
Then, she began moving through the twelve steps of the Passage.She shifted side to side, circling her arms low, then turned toward her front foot and swept her arms overhead.
Breath in.Breathout.
She closed her eyes and saw the fabric of the Void—it surrounded her, clung to her like a second skin.Her movements beckoned it, and as she breathed, tendrils of darkness filled her mouth, throat, and lungs, cold asice.
Ren’wyn passed to the third movement, leaning back, one hand reaching behind her, the other stretching downward.The shadows danced over her stomach and breasts, licking up her arms like flames of darkness.
Breath and darkness and death.She felt whole and full andtrue.
When she tilted her hips forward, she saw Fael watching her.He had stopped in the middle of his exercise, his sword grazing the forest floor.
“Ren’wyn,” he whispered, his voice filled with wonder.“Your power is alive.”
She reached for him, shadows beckoning from her outstretched hand.He hesitated, eyes unsure, then took four large, swift steps and clasped herhand.
Fael let his power loose, and fire and smoke played along their arms.Their eyes met—hers black, his tinged with orange.
“Have you ever blended power before?”she asked.
“I had no idea it was possible,” he murmured, low enough that she wondered if he worried he might break the spell they’d created together.
The Void whispered to Ren’wyn, and though she couldn’t understand the words, she knew their meaning.
