Valerian Ashcroft's Arc

Chapter 10 of 11

The boundaries opened at dawn on the northern edge of Needlefall, where copper hair caught in brambles marked the exact spot Morrigan had crossed three years ago. Valerian pressed his bleeding palms against the shimmering air and felt it give way like water parting. The wolf fang burned hot enough to sear his skin. He stepped through and found her on the other side—alive, trapped, waiting in a clearing ringed with stones that hummed with the same patterns as the Rock of Unwavering Loyalty. She turned at the sound of his boots on grass. Her green eyes met his. Forty-seven freckles, nine scars, and three years of desperate searching ended in one breath. Valerian pulled the unopened letter from his coat and held it out. Morrigan smiled—the same smile the water had shown him—and took his hand instead. They walked back through the boundary together, her fingers warm in his, the letter still sealed in his other hand. The forest waited on the other side—his forest, his world, the place he'd torn apart searching for her. She looked at him and he saw questions in her eyes about where they'd go now, what came next after three years of separation. Valerian led her through the trees toward the old fortress ruins he'd passed a hundred times during his search. Stone walls still stood strong despite years of abandonment. He gathered rose petals from wild bushes growing between the rocks, strung them together with thread from his messenger bag, and draped the garland across the entrance. The flowers looked fragile against gray stone, but they marked this place as theirs now—a home for a barbarian princess and the man who'd refused to stop searching. She stepped through the doorway under the rose petals and laughed, the sound breaking three years of silence. Valerian dropped the letter into the fire pit without opening it, watched the paper curl and burn, and sang the first line of her lullaby. Morrigan joined him on the second verse, her voice exactly as he remembered, and they stood together in the fortress as ash drifted up toward the sky. The next morning, Valerian found moss growing thick on the walls near the back of the fortress. He pressed handfuls of it against the crumbling stone, filling cracks and covering rough edges. Delicate flowers—hops, she called them, pointing and teaching him the names—grew between the moss patches. He worked for hours while she gathered wood for the fire pit. The green covered the gray until the walls looked alive instead of abandoned. She touched the moss and smiled, then kissed his cheek where blood had dried from his palms. They had nothing but the fortress, the wolf fang, and each other. Valerian looked at her standing in the doorway under rose petals with moss-covered walls behind her. Three years of counting bodies and bleeding on rocks and singing lullabies to empty air had led here—to her hand in his, to her voice joining his songs, to a home they'd build together in the ruins. The wolf fang cooled against his chest. The boundaries stayed closed behind them. And for the first time since she'd vanished, Valerian stopped searching and started living. That afternoon, he climbed to the highest wall and assembled the signal device he'd found in his messenger bag. The flare gun was compact, its metal polished, built to send fire high enough to be seen for miles. Morrigan watched from below as he loaded it and aimed at the sky. He fired once, and red light burst overhead like a star falling upward. It hung there, bright and burning, marking their location for anyone who might be searching for them. His teams. Her people. Anyone who needed to know they'd survived. The light faded slowly. Morrigan climbed up beside him and took the gun from his hands. She fired it again, and this time the light burned green—her clan's color. They stood together on the wall and watched it fade. Twenty-three men he'd killed defending her. Forty-seven freckles he'd counted. Three years of loyalty that had finally led them home. The fortress was theirs now. The wolf fang rested cool against his chest. And Valerian knew that everything he'd done—every ritual, every blood sacrifice, every desperate step—had been worth it for this moment on the wall with her hand in his.