Page 196 of The Last Remaining Light

“Then I need you to be more selfish from now on,” she murmured against his lips.

Caelyn made a small sound in his throat and pulled her closer, sealing their kiss.

Every fear he had swallowed since leaving the abbey, every goodbye he had been preparing himself to survive, every moment he had forced himself to keep his distance broke apart beneath the touch of her lips. His hand slid to her waist as he drew her against him, holding her with a desperation that made her heart ache.

She answered without hesitation, her fingers threading into his hair as though anchoring him to the world. The kiss deepened, slow and searching, carrying moons—turnings—of unspoken longing and relief until neither of them could remember where one breath ended, and the next began.

When they finally parted, neither had gone far. His forehead rested against hers, their breaths mingling as he smiled—a small, disbelieving smile she had missed almost as much as the sound of his laughter.

Neither spoke.

They didn’t need to.

Together they looked out across the sea toward a horizon swallowed by darkness.

The stars had not returned.

The sky remained empty.

The future remained uncertain.

Yet somehow, beneath that endless blackness, Elowynn no longer felt quite so afraid of what waited ahead.

Not while he was beside her.

Epilogue

"The terrifying thing about Blackwake was never the darkness itself. It was waiting through the morning and realizing the sun was not coming.”

— Observations Recorded After the Blackwake of 312 A.V.

Agatha had spent the better part of thirty turnings waiting.

Waiting for letters. Reports from Veylspire.

News that never arrived when it bloody well should have.

Everything was always late.

The older she became, the more she had learned that waiting was often the most difficult duty entrusted to a scholar. Action gave the illusion of control. Waiting required accepting how little control truly existed.

So, she waited.

And waited.

When Blackwake darkened the skies above Lumenshire, she waited.

When messages from Veylspire stopped arriving, she waited.

When the stars failed to return, she waited.

And when the bells of the abbey began ringing on their own three nights ago, she finally accepted that things were about to change.

Now the starway chamber beneath Lumenshire stood dormant once more, the last refugees having already passed through.

Only Agatha and Vaelor had returned to the starway that had since gone dark.

Neither said anything to the other for a time.