تسجيل الدخولEMBER I awoke to someone arguing outside our bedroom."He said I could see Mama."My eyes flew open. At first, I couldn't remember exactly where I was. Then I felt Azai's arm around my waist, heard his slow breathing behind me, and remembered everything.I sat up so quickly that the room spun."Easy," Azai murmured. His voice was ragged with sleep. "You still need to rest.""That's my baby right there," I whispered, quickly grabbing clothes to slip on."He's been threatening the guards since sunrise," Azai replied, sluggishly putting on clothes.“Come in!” I called, once we were fully dressed.The door opened and Dora came in with Kora in her arms. He looked smaller than I remembered. Then he saw me."MAMA!"Dora barely managed to put him down before he ran. I scrambled off the bed, caught him against my chest, and dropped to my knees on the carpet.My son.Warm cheeks. Tangled black hair. Two little hands grabbing my face as though he needed to make sure every piece was stil
AZAI I stared at her. Ember was still talking. I could see her lips moving and could feel the warmth of her body against mine, but the words had become a distant, meaningless sound."Azai?" Her eyebrows drew together. "You're hurting my wrist."I released her immediately. A red mark remained where my fingers had been.Goddess. I had hurt her again."I'm sorry." My voice sounded strange. I cleared my throat, but the tightness only worsened. "Tell me what happened after that."She hesitated."I don't know. I was dead."Pain tore through my chest. I jerked away from her. My feet hit the floor, and I tried to stand.My legs folded.I caught the bedpost before I could fall, dragging in a breath that did absolutely nothing for the suffocating pressure behind my ribs."Azai!"Ember scrambled towards me, but the room was already spinning.My wife had been dead. I had spent months telling myself I could never kill her because death would take her somewhere I couldn't follow.And she had
AZAI I saw Teyan first. He was lying on a carrier, deathly pale, while two healers worked over the wound in his side. My feet stopped.Decades of anger hit me all at once. Where had he gone? Why hadn't he come back? Why... now?His head turned weakly. Our eyes met."Azai."My throat tightened."You look like shit," he whispered.I scoffed in disbelief. "You disappeared for decades, and that's all you have to say to me?"His mouth moved faintly. "Sorry."One of the healers pushed him back down when he tried to rise. I wanted to go to him and demand every answer he owed me.But then, warmth moved through me, and I turned. She was standing beneath the trees at the edge of the courtyard.Goddess. The guard hadn't exaggerated. She was enormous.Moon-white fur caught the lantern light, streaked with gold that seemed to glow beneath it. Blood darkened her muzzle, and her chest rose and fell with exhaustion. But it was her eyes that destroyed me. Ember.Slowly, her ears flattened, and a
AZAI Kora nearly knocked me back onto the bed. “Papa!"Pain dug into my ribs when his small body crashed into mine, but I wrapped both arms around him and held on.Dora stood near the door with Athena, watching us quietly. She had brought him back less than five minutes ago after receiving Athena's raven, and Kora hadn't stopped talking since the moment he saw me."You were gone," he accused into my neck."I’m here now, pup.”"Mama gone too." That one hurt differently.I pulled him back enough to see his face. “Mama is coming home."His eyes widened. "You found her?""Yes,” I croaked.Kora's face crumpled with such sudden relief that I pulled him against me again before he could cry."She knows you're safe," I murmured into his hair. "Mama sad?""Very.""I’ll hug her."A laugh slipped out of me. "I think she'll like that.""And kiss.""She'll like that too.""And tell her no crying."That would probably be less successful. I rubbed his back slowly, feeling the steady beat of his
EMBER We almost made it. That was the part that pissed me off. Teyan got me out through the lower tunnels without meeting another guard. We stole cloaks, food and boots from an empty room before slipping through an old drainage tunnel into the night.Then we ran.Not elegantly. Not particularly fast either, at least on my part, but minutes later, the compound was somewhere behind us, and the only things around me were snow, trees and an increasingly irritating number of mountains.My body started protesting almost immediately. I ignored it. Kora was south. Azai was south. That was enough."How much farther?" I asked as Teyan helped me down a steep ridge."Not far.""You said that before.""This time I'm lying less.""Comforting."He smiled. Then he stopped so abruptly I walked into him."What—"His hand covered my mouth, and I froze. At first there was only the wind. Then Nivara rose inside me. A heartbeat reached me from behind us. Then another. And another.Teyan slowly lowere
EMBER When the darkness threw me back into the room, I stayed exactly where I was. My head was pounding hard enough to make my vision pulse, and something warm ran from my nose to my lip. I wiped it away with the back of my hand and stared at the blood without really seeing it.Azai found me.The thought kept circling through everything else. Kora was alive. Taka woke up and remembered Razan cutting him. Dain survived. Ellian was free. Even Athena and the tiny impossible heartbeat hidden inside her were all still there, waiting somewhere beyond these walls.A shudder passed through me, but beneath it something warm stretched slowly through my chest.Nivara.I closed my eyes. She was still here. Her presence was faint compared to what I felt with Azai inside my head, but it wasn't gone anymore.I almost called for her. But then, footsteps passed outside my door.My eyes opened.I lay down immediately and pulled the blanket around myself, curling towards the wall before the foots







