Page 148 of A Feather So Black

He kissed her, and kissed her again. But his eyes were the color of the eastern sky, filled with the bitter promise of a day come too soon.

The sun slid up, slicing between them like a fire-fretted blade. They held each other, desperate, as the night faded toward day—their skin one skin, their breath one breath, their heartbeat one heartbeat.

A morning star pricked the dawn, then flung itself down in a line of flame.

She drew back first. Her mismatched eyes shone, huge in her face.

“Irian,” she whispered, and then, again: “Irian.”

He lifted his head from her hair. Slid his hand below her chin. Touched the blue-green stone fixed above her breast.

“You did it, colleen,” he murmured. “Fia, you changed our story’s ending.”

She looked down at the river stone, its crack mended. She slid her hand beneath it, where—impossibly, amazingly—her own heart throbbed a strong, steady pulse. She lifted her arms and saw they were embossed with dark curling vines. Vines tracing her skin like veins, studded with sharp thorns. And tangled in those vines were a thousand sharp black feathers, a near-perfect mirror to the arms holding her now.

Sorrow slid suddenly through her as she remembered. Sorrow for what she’d lost. Sorrow for what she had not yet found. Sorrow for the boy she’d loved, who’d become a thrall for a woman who did not love him. Sorrow for her brave, brazen friend, who’d thrown herself toward an uncertain, violent fate. Sorrow for her mirror sister—her shadow twin—who she’d thought was brightness incarnate but who’d made herself into something much darker. Sorrow for broken kingdoms and stolen Gates and memories lost and not yet found.

But then she looked up. Pulled the man she loved down for a lingering kiss. More than a kiss—a covenant.

Tomorrow they could grieve. Tomorrow they could plan. Tomorrow they could go to war. Tomorrow was more than either of them had ever hoped for.

“Good morning,” she said.

A slow smile curved his lush, plush lips. “Good morning, colleen.”

And she knew—this was where her story ended.

This was where her story began.