Page 156 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

“I love you,” I breathed, brushing tangled hair from her face. “I love you so much, Mags.”

“I love you too,” she whimpered, the pain in her voice like a blade to the solar plexus.

“Say it again,” I groaned, kissing tears from her cheeks.

“I love you, Aren.”

“God, baby.” I kissed her again, relieved when she let me have even that much. “You came for me.” The last thing I remembered about the After was her yanking me back with her bare hands. In the end, I wasn’t sure my choice had mattered much at all.

“Always,” she sobbed, tears slipping steadily down her temples. I wiped them away, kissing the tracks they left. “You’re right—we can’t. Stupid. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t. I need you more than my next fucking breath, baby.”

Her chin wobbled as her hands moved over my cheeks, my neck. “For everything, Aren. It’s my fault we can’t⁠—”

I cut her off with a kiss and shook my head when I pulled away. “I didn’t fall in love with you so I could fuck you, Mags. What we are doesn’t waver because there are limits for a while.” And she was right: taking her would activate that damned Guardian Bond. Grayshell needed me at the front, August needed my experience at his back, and our people needed me to reunite us through The Middle. None of that got easier if something happened to Nat and I became Magnolia’s dutiful pawn.

“A while,” she scoffed tearfully.

“Let me finish this. Let me get my people home—get Alvara home—and send those three bastards to face the Creator. Then I’m yours. In this life or the next.”

“Don’t say that,” she breathed, a shadow flaring to life in her eyes.

“But it’s true. I’ll find you in any lifetime, little dove.” I kissed her forehead. “Any form.” Her cheekbone. “Any realm.” Each eyelid. “Just bear with me while I do what must be done.”

She nodded against me, then snaked her limbs around my body and pulled me down beside her. I tucked her beneath my chin and held her tighter, determined to keep her there as long as fate allowed.

We lay tangled together like roots from the same tree. The finality of it threatened even my resolve, an ache planting deep in my center where my magic still reached for hers.

The memory of her safe in my arms carried me through the hell that followed. The next few weeks nearly killed me.

There were no more stolen moments—I wasn’t sure I had the restraint to stop again if she so much as touched me. Just battles bleeding into one another, hidden beneath Marcus’ glamours. Endless strategy sessions. Breathless updates from Freya on Paladin actions in the south and on her brother, who was shredding our enemy to smoldering pieces in his admittedly savage hunt for my second.

On the rare occasions Mags and I occupied the dining hall together, we ate in heavy silence. Even the brush of her arm against mine or our knees beneath the table sent my body into desperation, the bond buried in my chest straining for her like a living being.

I couldn’t bring myself to rehash it.

Couldn’t bring myself to give voice to a betrayal she didn’t deserve.

She hadn’t known. I knew that. And still, the knowledge that my enemy knew her body—her pleasure—as I did made something crawl beneath my skin. That he held any claim to her, or she to him… it tormented the few waking moments I wasn’t swinging blades beneath August’s banner.

She hadn’t known.

And yet loving her hurt more sharply than anything I’d ever endured. We were ships passing in the night.

She arrived to heal the wounded as I left to recover or receive marching orders.

Her priestess helped assemble The Grayshell Party—souls we hand-selected for the trek across The Middle—and helped us build a rough map of what waited along the way.

When the world finally slowed, our eyes met outside Aphaea’s birthing room. We knew. Both of us. This was the end of whatever borrowed time we’d had. August had ordered us to guard the Carters until Fae was back on her feet.

Now Winnie was in her arms, and my next task was the impossible.

I couldn’t make myself say goodbye.

Couldn’t accept that I might never see her again if the prophecy held true. There was no realm where I could do what needed doing if I let that possibility take root, so I refused it. Refused to believe in a fate too damned to outmaneuver and put my faith in the one soul we’d always wagered on. Ally would never send us down a thread we couldn’t emerge from.

So I’d only breathed, “See you soon, little dove.”