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Gods, I wanted to sweep her into my arms and hold her. I knew the slope of her shoulders so well. The way the fine wisps of her hair curled at her temples. I knew the hard defiance she wore on her like a shield, but I hadn’t met her grief yet. It was an unwelcome stranger I wanted to banish as soon as possible; its presence in the room made my chest ache.
“Healing is a small magic for me,” I whispered to him. “I guess it’s lucky for both of us that you’re small, too.”
KINGFISHER PLS I CANT ALREADY
“Don’t you know? There isn’t much I wouldn’t sacrifice to make you happy, Osha.
God Bindings marked her hands and her wrists. They were wrapped around my wrists, too. We were of one another, bound to one another, in a way that felt strange and thrilling.
I LOVE THEM
Kingfisher. My mate.
“I am no child. My name is Saeris Fane, and I am your queen.”
YOU TELL EM BITCH
You can own your fantasies with me, Little Osha. There is nothing in this realm or the next that I won’t give to you if you desire it. All you ever need do is ask.
“It’s okay. Really. If you’re not the marrying type—” “I’m not.” His eyes were burning. “The marrying type. I never have been. Before, the very idea would have sent me running for the hills. I just… I could never imagine the kind of love I would need to feel to choose that path for myself. But now I don’t need to imagine. Now I can’t think of anything I want to do more. Marrying you would be…”
UGH
“I love you, and nothing else matters beyond that. Wherever you are, I’ll beg the gods and all the fates to let me be there, too,”
“I don’t crave the attention of the sun. The snowcapped mountains, the forest, the frozen river… those places are my home. You are home.”
“Come now, Osha. Where else would an acolyte kneel to worship but at the altar of his god?”
oh my god, this is “my house my chair my woman” all over again
“Suck,” I told him. His eyes rolled back into his head, and Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate, slayer of the last dragon and Lord of Cahlish, obeyed me.
My GOD
ANOTHER DRESS LAY over the back of the chair, untouched. I’d chosen it yesterday, pulling it from the garment bags safely tucked away at the back of my mother’s dressing chamber. They hadn’t belonged to my mother; I found the dresses there shortly after bringing Saeris to Cahlish for the first time. They weren’t my mother’s style or her colors at all. She had simply foreseen a day when Saeris would come and had left an entire wardrobe for her—a gift for the beloved female that she would never call daughter.
S T O P
Because what was a book, if not a portal into another realm, another time, another life even.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispered. “You’ve existed in my mother’s drawings for most of my life, but you were never real to me before. I didn’t believe…” His eyes were wide and full of awe. “I had no idea what you would mean to me. I had no idea what I would do to keep you safe. When I close my eyes, you are all I fucking see, Saeris Fane. I could be dead in the ground five thousand years and the frosts could have taken my bones, and still no other male will ever have loved another female the way that I love you.”
MY GOD
Come here. If you can bear the fact that our bodies aren’t touching for one more second, then you’re a better person than me, Saeris Fane,” he whispered.
My prince of shadows. I had been born into the light, but my salvation had been waiting for me in the dark.
“I’d spend the fortunes of the universe to protect you. I’d drain the seas dry. Fell every tree. I would sacrifice the sun from the fucking sky and surrender the stars, too, if I could. But those things aren’t mine to give. All I have is my life. It isn’t much, but I’d spend it and consider the price small if it meant keeping you safe.”
THE FOX SMELLED like wild winter and frost-bitten mornings. I held him tightly under one arm, humming a lullaby that my mother had sung to me as an infant quietly under my breath. Not to the fox. I wasn’t humming to the fox. That would have been weird. I just liked the song, and I had a feeling he did, too. There was nothing wrong with that.
Nothing like a man babying a pet he didnt want
well. Today, she stands at a fork in the road. I see the way before you both, and I see you tread the path together. But the bond that binds you both will be strongest if she places this book into your hands.
W O W
“What is our glorious purpose,
Loki?
Consider a sixth. Only the golden-toothed wolf can be trusted. —Entry from the journal of Edina of the Seven Spires
FOLEYYYY
I love you, Little Osha. I love you, too.
“What’s its name?” I asked. This was becoming something of a ritual—one I enjoyed more than I could explain. Tal let out a long, shaky breath, considering the sword. “Tarsarinn,” he said. “It means… redemption.”
“Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate, I hereby call you by your true name. I declare all oaths you have sworn null and void. Rise, Khydan Graystar Finvarra, in honor of the name you were given at birth! Rise up and fight!”
HIS N A M E
“The fox’s soul is still with you. It is currently sitting at your feet. It seems that the beast hasn’t realized that it’s dead yet. It follows you like a little lost shadow.
IM GONNA KMS
“He isn’t just a fox. He’s family. And if Saeris says she’s going to save him, then she’s going to.”
IM TRYING SO HARD TO KEEP IT TOGETHER AS I SOB MY EYES OUT
I heard a chittering squeal and a small white fox was leaping into my arms. He was alive. Alive! Onyx squirmed so hard I nearly dropped him. He screamed with excitement, his whole body wagging as he licked my chin and my cheeks. His tiny heart battered against his newly healed ribs, pure joy radiating from him as he turned and rained kisses down on Fisher, too.
MY HEART IS GONNA GIVE OUT
“You should have told us you were coming,” he said, with that warm, lilting accent of his. “It’s a point of pride for the people of Ajun that these gates should always open to you, brother.” Renfis.
WHERE TF HAVE YOU BEEN
“I’ve come for a dragon, as is my right. Summon our father. Tell him I’ve come to make a trade.”
OH MY GOD, I NEED TO KNOW WHAT MOM IS GONNA SAY AFTER THIS TRADE
