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“It’s a sacred place,” the dryad told her. “Only if you truly wish it will I allow it.” Those golden eyes pierced through to the very essence of her being. Gwen knew she shouldn’t lie, but she also knew she couldn’t stay.
“Yes.”
The dryad nodded and reached out her hands. Gwen took them hesitantly. Through that touch, she could better feel the forest around them. The hum of the air. The fall of the snow. A strange sensation fell over her, a calm. It was as if everything were falling into place and happening as it should.
Despite herself, Gwen glanced back. Sirus stood in the shadows beyond the clearing, concealed like he’d been that first night they’d met. Their eyes locked and she took in a sharp breath brimming with emotions.
“Curious,” Iathana whispered, then they were gone.
In a blink, they had vanished. Only a swirl of snow and a ripple of magick were left behind.
Gwendolyn was gone. It was done.
As a vampire, Sirus had found his lack of emotion useful. His world had been nothing but gray, and he’d relished the simplicity of it. With Gwendolyn, he’d tasted color. Life. Emotions he hadn’t thought himself capable of. She’d been like a subtle euphoria taking over his senses. How much of her vibrance had seeped into him, he’d not fully recognized. Until she was gone.
The forest stirred, whipping the snow around him. Its magicks brought him no comfort. Sirus didn’t draw in the darkness nor fill his heart with ice. Instead, he looked into the haze. The same mist he’d wandered the night Marcus had come. A twist of pain spread in his chest, a hurt no physical weapon could ever create. It was a void.
Sirus had gone to Gwendolyn intending to ask if she would stay. But the more she’d spoken, the more he realized he couldn’t. No matter his feelings for her, Gwendolyn would be safest in the Veil. Protected from everyone. Including him.
We knew this was never going to last. You being what you are.
Her words rang in his head. He had warned her away so many times. Had tried to tell her he was not a creature to be cared for. Gwendolyn had cared for him, but he knew it had been too much to assume she could ever love him.
Even if he had loved her.
His conviction that he had done his duty in protecting her did not fill the gaping void left within him.
Gwendolyn was gone. He would never see her again. The pain sharpened like a Dökk blade plunged into his heart.
Barith’s snarls of frustration filled the night. A more violent swirl of wind and a shudder of magick preceded the party’s arrival in the near distance.
“To hell with both of you,” the dragon snapped, stomping directly in Sirus’s direction.
He didn’t try to slip out of their path.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Levian bellowed after him.
When Barith came crashing into the clearing, he stopped short at the sight of Sirus. “Fuck,” he spat, clearly startled. The dragon eyed him warily. “You look like shite.”
Levian peeked around Barith’s hulking form a second later. Her eyes narrowed on Sirus, then landed on the stump where Iathana had been sitting before. A small patch of vibrant green moss had grown where she’d sat, now nearly covered in snow.
“Iathana was here,” she guessed with a hint of unease.
Niah stepped into the clearing and met Sirus’s eye. “She’s gone?”
Sirus confirmed with a tilt of his head.
The dragon looked between brother and sister. “Iathana already came and left?”
Levian let out a deep sigh and crossed her arms over her chest. “She meant Gwen. But yes, Iathana was here.”
Barith’s face went slack.
Sirus didn’t wish to recount the whole of it, so he merely said, “Iathana took her to the Veil.”
A silence fell as the weight of it settled in. It was broken when Barith bit out a vicious string of curses. “That wood-chattering imp!” he snarled. “She would come while we’re gone!” He cursed a few lines more. “She probably knew we were at the fucking Prison and planned it just to avoid us.”
Levian rubbed her temple with the tips of her fingers. “Iathana has always done as she pleases when she pleases. I doubt she cared whether you or any of us were here or not. However, it is a touch grating. It would’ve been nice to speak with her. How did it go?”
