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Lunara, on the other hand, was about to pass out. She blinked against the spots crowding her vision, swaying. Against the temptation to topple the wall in her friend’s mind—the one fighting her efforts, snapping and lashing as the shadows always did—simply to get them out of her way.
“You’re doing so well, my friend,” Hedda murmured in her ear, the gentle tone so at odds with her usual manner. Stilted as she repeated some of the words Lunara always gifted to the creatures she healed. “So very well.”
Her hand squeezed Lunara’s shoulder, bolstering her.
She loosed more of Illamiata’s raw power, Fern bowing into the bed with a scream, but she didn’t let up when the others started shouting. When Pet started growling. They didn’t understand that some screams were good. That Fern herself would be the first to say she’d rather have it over with so they could all go back to whatever was more important.
Resetting and regrowing bone made everyone lose their bleeding shite, but it needed to happen, and they were better for it in the end. The only problem was Lunara feeling it, too, and trying not to succumb.
Her throat shredded as she joined Fern in her agony. Tearing. Breaking. Shattering. It might have been minutes or hours later when Fern finally went limp, a serene look on her face.
Lunara wasn’t sure who caught her when she lost her own consciousness—just that she was gone before she hit the pillow.
“What do you mean she isn’t here?”
Brand was ready to punch a hole in the roof of the cottage. He wanted to stand fully upright while he unleashed his rage at the dark sky. While he desperately tried to find air for his stifled lungs. Luna promised she’d never leave him again. Promised every night she’d be there when he woke up, the words helping him retain a semblance of calm.
Finding her gone was a betrayal he refused to name.
“It was urgent, Brand,” Araxis said. “I tried everything to avoid it.”
“Take me to her,” he seethed. “Now.”
Nothing else mattered. He just got her back. Got some of himself back. They weren’t supposed to be separated, no matter the reason.
Araxis rolled his eyes. “I’ve been commanded by my Blessed Keeper not to do that until you read this.”
The world spun. Araxis was commanded by her?
He was barely breathing when he snatched the folded piece of parchment away from his brother and growled, “Get me the fuck outside before I lose my mind.”
Araxis misted him to the garden and Brand threw his shoulders back, stretching the crick in his neck as he frantically opened the letter.
It dawned on him as he took it in that he’d never gotten one from her.
The faintly glowing scrollwork was exactly right for his little moon. Typical, that she did this one thing so beautifully when she couldn’t even hang her bloody clothes in the wardrobe. That this little betrayal was so skillful, the perfect lines like artwork, when his mind was crumbling to the point that he barely understood it at first.
To my high-handed, overbearing Demon,
For starters, take a few deep breaths and find some peace again. Once you’ve stopped growling and pacing, look around you. Do you feel that?
The quiet. The stillness that lays heavy in the air. The lack of any creature for miles.
This is your chance, Brand. Right here.
Stretching out all around you is a taste of what you’ve always wanted. A life I lived for fifty-two years that you claimed to envy not so very long ago. It’s lonely, sometimes even grueling, but I think it might be what you need right now.
Just for a little while. Just until you’re ready.
Some options, because you deserve a choice in all things, regardless of what I think:
First, you crumple this paper, toss it to the ground, and demand Araxis bring you to me. Should that happen, I will throw my arms around your neck and rain kisses all over your grumpy face as soon as I see you.
Second, you say nothing and I promise to be back as soon as I’ve pulled Fern from the bleeding Veil. Again. Yet another alternative with the same end result of me throwing my arms around you when we’re reunited.
Third, you accept the gift I’m trying to offer you. You take the leap and live with only yourself, in the hope you might be able to find him again without the pressures of others, in whatever way you deem most useful. You understand that I’m not asking you to do anything I haven’t done myself these past few months, though the methods are different. You realize the truth—that, no matter how we both might revel in the connection, you will never find your healing in my body alone. And then you send Araxis away with your explicit consent.
You can live a simple life, Brand, until you’re ready for the rest.
