The memory was so fresh that I stifled a hot gasp. Wylfrael rose instantly from where he’d been sitting, stalking towards me and stopping at the side of the bed. I resisted the urge to scramble backward and away from him just as I resisted the urge to get nearer to him.
He is like a black fucking hole. If I get too close, I’ll disappear.
“You’re awake. Good.”
“Good morning to you too,” I said, voice croaky.
He ignored my greeting.
“I have business to attend to in the nearest villages. I must reacquaint myself with the Sionnachans.”
“Reacquaint yourself?” It was too early for this. Even though, judging by the strength of the light coming in here, it probably wasn’t early at all.
“Yes,” Wylfrael said. “Every Sionnachan I knew before is dead. I must meet their descendants. Reestablish relations.”
I felt my brow furrow as I took this in. Why had I not realized that before? Wylfrael had been gone for generations, recovering from some battle. He’d only just returned...
And everyone he’d known in this entire world was gone.
God, I knew all too well what that was like.
“I’m sorry.”
Wylfrael inhaled sharply, looking taken aback by my words. He shut down the expression quickly, settling his features into an appearance of cool neutrality.
“What for?”
He genuinely seemed not to know. I wondered if he thought I was trying to apologize for something else, for something I’d done.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said.
Loss. It made me think of the conversation we’d had after Maerwynne had left. When Wylfrael had looked agonized and told me that what he’d lost was worth more than any world. I’d wanted to say sorry then, too. Instead, I’d just told him that maybe he’d deserved it.
This must have been what he was talking about. He hadn’t lost wealth or status or power, but people. Though he was controlled now, I remembered the look of deep pain on his face that day. He cares about the Sionnachans. Deeply.
And in this moment, I cared about him. Enough to feel sad for his loss, anyway. I’d already decided, holding the knife in Wylfrael’s kitchen, that I wouldn’t let him strip my humanity away. And in that humanity, compassion for him grew. It didn’t take away my anger or confusion, but it was there all the same.
“It does not make sense to apologize for a death you did not cause,” Wylfrael said.
“It’s what we say where I’m from,” I said, shrugging. “What do stone sky gods say when someone dies?”
“Nothing, usually.”
“OK then... What about the Sionnachans?”
Wylfrael’s mouth twisted, and I thought he wouldn’t answer, but he did.
“‘They rest with Nacha now. And I will help you rest until you meet them.’”
“Then, I’m sorry for your loss. But they rest with Nacha now. And I will help you rest until you meet them.”
“You should not make promises you don’t intend to keep,” he admonished, deadly quiet. “That saying means that you will take care of the other person in their grief. That you’ll take on their burdens as your own.”
I shrugged again, not willing to confirm the sentiment of the expression but not exactly taking it back, either.
“I mean, I am supposed to be your bride, aren’t I?” I asked. “Anyway, I’m just saying that I know what it’s like to lose everyone you’ve ever loved.”
His gaze searched my face. His elbow flexed, his hand twitching forward, as if to touch me.
But he didn’t.
He closed himself off with a nonchalant flick of his wings.
“Well, I do not need any rest. And I do not plan on meeting Nacha or anyone else anytime soon.”
That was an understatement, considering that he was immortal.
Well, lucky you, then. You’ll never die like the rest of us.
But there was no real ire in the thought. In fact, I thought that being alive forever was even worse than dying. Endlessly living while those you cared about disappeared around you. Collecting the deaths of the ones you loved like stitches on a cloak, each one adding just a little more weight to your steps, your shoulders, your heart.
It probably made me a fool, and maybe he didn’t deserve it, but now I felt even sorrier for him.
“What will you do when I die?”
My question cracked his illusion of control. Astonishment wracked his features, and his wings snapped wildly, sending a cracking boom, like thunder, through the air.
“What?” he asked, as if he hadn’t understood my question.
I stared at him steadily and repeated the question slowly, calmly.
“What will you do when I die?”
His brows crashed downward in confused consternation, as if I’d brought up some bizarre scenario that made no sense.
“I’m mortal,” I reminded him. “I’ll die eventually.”
“How long does your kind live?” The question made the same sound his wings had a moment ago – a vicious snap.
“Barring any illnesses or accidents, I probably have another fifty or sixty years. Maybe seventy, but that’s pushing it. Oh, and a year is three hundred sixty-five days.”
Sionnachan days were very similar in length to Earth ones, so I knew he’d be able to do the math.
He gave me a stricken look, storms in his eyes.
“That’s all?”
It came out like an accusation, like he was angry with me for being mortal.
“What do you mean, ‘that’s all’? That’s an entire human lifetime!”
“It’s barely half a heartbeat!” he burst out.
“Well,” I spat back, “I’d rather live half a heartbeat and make it count than have a heart that beats forever even though it’s empty.”
Wylfrael jerked his head to the side, eyes boring into the fire. When he looked my way again, he was composed.
“My business in the neighbouring villages will take a few days. I will return every night but might be late. If I am not back by the time the evening meal is served, go ahead and eat without me.”
“Alright. I will,” I said.
He lingered, as if he might say something else, but he didn’t.
And neither did I.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE Torrance
What Wylfrael said would take a few days stretched into four, then five. On the morning of the sixth day, I wondered if this was just our new normal. If this was how our marriage was going to be, what the Sionnachans thought of it be damned. As promised, Wylfrael did return every night, but always long after I’d gone to bed, pretending to sleep. I could never fall asleep without him there, but instead lay there in the dark, impatient and annoyed, feigning slumber when he inevitably showed up, stalking into the fire-lit darkness.
I was too proud to sit up and talk to him when he returned at night, not willing to show him that I’d stayed up for him even though I hadn’t really wanted to. Every night, I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. And every night, without fail, sleep didn’t come to me until after Wylfrael did. As far as I could tell, he never slept in the bed, but spent the nights upright in a crystal chair.