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January 19 - November 17, 2025
To everyone who’s waiting for their rainbow at the end of the storm.
The dogs are safe. Nothing happens or ever will happen to the dogs. They’re both very good girls.
Thank you for telling me where she would be. Rion’s words come back to me with the diamond-hard clarity of honed steel. But I refuse to believe them. If Nadir gave me up, he had a reason. He had no choice. He would never have done so willingly. After everything we’ve been through, I have to believe that. I handed him my trust, and I refuse to waver at the first test.
No one’s heart has broken into as many pieces as mine.
I am bereft. Tossed in the waves of a sea with no bottom where I’ll sink and sink for eternity. My mate. I killed my mate.
My heart lives outside of me now, exposed and raw for the world to witness the monster I’ve become.
I cry, and I cry until my soul melts out of my chest and my limbs drain of every emotion and feeling, leaving me numb and hollow and broken.
“Don’t worry. As long as he’s with me, he’s in a suspended state. He’ll be fine once I choose to revive him. It will be like you never killed him at all.”
“All I know is I never want to go back there. At least not until we decide we’re done with this life. Together.”
“You never will. From now until the sun burns out and the mountains crumble into the sea, I will be yours, Nadir. This is my promise.”
“I don’t know how I got so lucky,” he says. “I might say the same thing.”
I wait, remembering the first time we did this. Remembering when I’d fought so hard against it but then I finally fell, and the plummet was the greatest feeling of my life.
This cruel prince who isn’t so cruel as long as he loves you.
The prince who took my heart and held it in his hand and forced me to see him. But who would have handed it back to me if I’d asked.
“I love you,” I say. “I need you to understand just how much I love you.”
“No. That isn’t true. I wanted to. From the very beginning. I never didn’t want to.”
This is where I belong. He is where I’ve always belonged.
“Morning, Lightning Bug.” “Morning,” I say, snuggling up to him.
There’s something about fresh, clean clothes and fresh, clean skin that feels like the most incredible luxury after the dirt and heat of the sand and the forest and that sweat-slicked escape I barely survived.
I used to be so acquainted with hunger, but I’ve grown softer since then. I can’t grit my way through it like I used to, but I refuse to feel bad about that. No one should ever have to feel that way.
“I can control my healing but not the lightning. It’s just a raging torrent. All or nothing.
Just because someone has power doesn’t mean they have to use it.”
“I’m so happy you found someone who loves you so much, Lor. You deserve happiness in your life, and you will find a way through this. I believe in you, and I love you. I wish I could do more to help, but no matter how dark it gets before the end, never forget how much you were loved.”
Interspersed between everything are vines and roses. The contrast between life and death, between the past and a possible future, makes my chest tight.
“What’s bothering you about this?” “I don’t want you to regret it. I don’t want you to resent me or the choice you made. I don’t want you to do this just for me.”
The crown isn’t important. What matters is family and friendship and this burning flame I carry for her in my heart. One that I won’t let be snuffed out.
