Page 140 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
‘I suppose they knew I wouldn’t die,’ Bryn said at last, his voice carrying a softness Kage had not heard before. Sadness, threaded through likesilver in dark cloth. ‘They must have known Wren was already gone.’
The words lingered between them.
‘So…’ Kage cleared his throat, the sound small against the stone walls. ‘How does it work exactly? Can you never die? Are you immortal?’
Bryn shrugged, though there was a weight to the motion. ‘I don’t think I’m immortal. Only da gods are such things.’ He stared at his hands. ‘I’ll die eventually. It may just take a very long time.’
There was something in his blue eyes. Not fear, not quite, but a quiet sorrow. As if the thought of enduring too long was its own kind of curse.
‘Or perhaps I’ll age like any other man,’ he added. ‘Grow old, grey. I simply cannot die by da hands of another.’ He lifted a shoulder again, as though it were of little consequence.
‘I’m sorry,’ Kage said softly. ‘About your family. About everything.’
Bryn nodded once. Then he lay back against the furs, his gaze fixing on Kage with such intensity that the wyverian wondered if some invisible truth had surfaced upon his face.
‘I’m sorry too, Kage,’ Bryn said after a while.
Kage’s breath faltered. ‘For what?’
‘For whatever happened to ya.’
The words struck deeper than any blade.
Kage tensed.
Did Bryn know? Surely he couldn’t. Yes, the wolverian king must have noticed the way Kage vanished with the rising sun, swallowed by something unseen, but suspicion was not knowledge.
He could not possibly know the truth.
That Kage Blackburn wasdead.
That he walked this world only by curse and consequence.
Kage remained where he was, keeping vigil as he did every night. The mountain breathed around them, stone sighing with distant trickles of water, wolves shifting in their sleep.
But tonight Bryn did not close his eyes.
He watched Kage instead.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Kage said quietly, as though the promise alone might ease whatever storm brewed behind those blue irises.
Bryn gave no reply. He simply pushed himself upright and crossed the small space between them. One of his thick furs was lifted and set carefully at Kage’s side.
‘Ya will be warmer.’
Kage almost told him it would make no difference, that warmth and cold no longer touched him the way they once had. But he swallowed the truth and merely inclined his head, shifting onto the fur.
Bryn joined him.
Their shoulders nearly brushed. The space between them felt charged, fragile as frost on glass.
‘I know ya say we’re both doomed,’ Bryn said, leaning closer still. The movement made Kage’s dark eyes widen, breath catching somewhere deep in his chest. ‘But we might as well enjoy da fall.’
The words settled between them; reckless, dangerous and alive.
Kage parted his lips to answer, but Bryn erased the distance between them before any words could form. The kiss was soft at first. Hesitant, almost questioning, a brush of warmth in the growing dusk. The last of the light beyond the cave mouth bled into shadow, but Kage did not care. Darkness had long since been his companion.
When Bryn drew back, breath mingling with his, Kage nearly spoke the truth. It rose to his tongue; the warning, the confession, the curse that chained him to a fate neither of them could outrun.
