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“It kills me, bird, that I cannot promise you any of it. All I can promise you is myself—my love, my respect, my devotion—every day that we have together, and every day that exists beyond then.” Kane’s eyes gleamed. “In life, in death, my soul is yours. Arwen, will you be my wife?”
“I’m only afraid of being without you. In death. In life. It’s all the same to me if we aren’t together.”
The thought at one time might’ve terrified me. The powerlessness of loving someone with all that I had and then some. I loved Arwen with all of myself, and then all the things I hoped to be, too. But tonight, that love only made me feel rooted. Tethered to someone. Bound to them, and bound to this life because of it.
“You’re a perceptive little bird, aren’t you?”
I was a lucky bastard. I’d fallen in love with a woman who opened up my mind in ways I’d never imagined. Who showed me how strength could be found in tenderness, or how the vulnerability of giving yourself over to someone could be a mighty, fortifying force. I’d fallen in love with a woman who was my friend. A light in pitch-darkness. A bird to guide me home.
“I had it made for you.” “When?” We’d been a little busy. “After I had more fun trapped inside a wine cellar than I’d had in two hundred years of living.”
“Please,” she begged, and my heart ripped from itself. “Forgive me,” I murmured, pulling her close, feeling consciousness slip from her. Smelling honeysuckle and orange blossom for the last time. “I love you. I’ll love you wherever I am, whatever I am. Always.”
Wings. I had wings. Glorious, massive, mighty wings of gold and red and yellow. Delicate, destructive—like burning fire, or autumn leaves, or the bright colors that painted the sky at first light.
My bird. A gleaming, feathered firebird. Mighty as the dawn, lit with rapturous fire. A phoenix. Of course.
“If you go back to the very beginning…the rightful heir is the child of true Onyx. You.”
You’ve saved yourself