Chapter 18: THIS IS US

Aria's POV

The day before we go up, I wake up and Kael is gone.

Not far though, I can feel him through the bond, that steady silver pull toward the garden. But the moss next to me is cold and the Abyss feels a little less warm when he’s not right here. It just feels like a place instead of his place.

I lie there for a minute staring at the ceiling.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow we go up.

I’ve been saying it in my head since yesterday and it still doesn’t feel real. Like the word lost its meaning. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I walk back into the world that watched me jump off a cliff and felt relieved.

Tomorrow I face Elena with six Vorryn witches and all the power she’s stolen over three years. Tomorrow everything I’ve been training for either works or it doesn’t.

I press my hand against my chest, my wolf is wide awake. Fully awake and pissed, pacing in circles inside me since yesterday, she knows what’s coming and she’s ready.

I get up and follow the bond to the garden.

He’s standing near the sideways tree, not touching it, just standing close to it.

He hears me coming but doesn’t turn around.

“You left,” I say.

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

“You usually don’t care about waking me.”

“Today’s different.”

I stop next to him and look at the sideways tree with its silver roots moving slowly.

The garden looks different this morning. All the colors are brighter, the blue plants almost glowing too strong, that weird flower already turned toward me even before I got close.

“You okay?” I ask.

He’s quiet for a bit.

“I’ve been thinking about what happens after,” he says.

“After we go up?”

“After we fix what Elena did, after the pack, after all of it.” He looks at the tree. “I’ve been thinking about what I do then.”

I look at his profile.

“You said you’d help me break the curse properly,” I say.

“Yeah.”

“Then that’s what happens after.”

“And if we can’t break it,” he says quietly. “If the only way is the full mating bond and you decide that’s not what you want… then I come back down here.”

The garden goes really quiet, just the slow breathing of the plants and the roots moving.

“Kael,” I say.

“I’m not asking for anything,” he says fast. “I’m not. I just need to be honest about how the curse works so you can make your own choices without it getting messy because of… whatever this is between us.”

Whatever this is.

I look at him, he’s holding himself careful again, that stiff way he gets when he’s feeling too much and trying to keep it under control.

“Look at me,” I say.

He looks at me, those silver eyes full of layers and time.

“Whatever this is,” I say, “I’m not running from it.”

He keeps looking at me.

“I jumped off a cliff because I had nothing left,” I say. “Three years of being slowly taken apart left me with nothing worth staying for except protecting some kids. Then I landed here and you were the first person in three years who actually saw me, who saw something worth seeing.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“I’m not running from that,” I say. “Whatever it is. Whatever it turns into, I’m not running.”

Something changes in his face, it opens up, all the way.

“When I looked in the pool a hundred years ago,” he says quietly, “I didn’t just see someone at a cliff edge in white. I saw someone who was going to change everything, someone so completely herself that it was going to ruin the quiet I’d gotten used to.”

I stare at him.

“The pool shows true things,” he says. “That’s what it showed me, so I waited, and tried not to want it too much.”

“Did it work?” I ask. “Trying not to want it too much?”

He looks at me.

“No,” he says.

Just that.

The garden breathes around us, that flower is still watching us.

I reach out and take his hand, not for the bond or training. Just my fingers sliding between his.

He looks down at our hands, then back at me.

“Aria,” he says, low.

“We have one day,” I say. “Before everything gets complicated tomorrow with Elena and the pack and all that shit.” I squeeze his hand. “One day.”

“What do you want to do with it?” he asks.

I look around the garden.

“Show me everything,” I say. “Every part of this place you’ve never been able to show anyone, everything you’ve been here with for a thousand years. Show me all of it.”

He looks at me for a long moment, then something in him relaxes.

“Come on then,” he says.

He doesn’t let go of my hand.

He shows me everything.

The deep passages where the walls swallow all sound and it gets so quiet it feels heavy. The high spots where you can almost feel the weight of the world above pressing down. A place where water from the dark pool runs through glowing gold streams in the rock.

He tells me they just appeared one day three hundred years ago and he still doesn’t know why.

He shows me a wall covered floor to ceiling in marks. Thousands of them, different depths and patterns.

“What is this?” I ask.

“Days,” he says.

I look at him.

“I stopped counting after the first century,” he says. “It was making things worse, but I needed to put them somewhere, so I put them here.”

I put my free hand on the wall and feel all those marks under my palm.

“Kael,” I say.

“Don’t,” he says gently.

“I wasn’t gonna get sad about it,” I say. “I was gonna say you survived every single one of these days. You showed up every day for a thousand years in a place that tried to swallow you and you didn’t let it.

That’s the most stubborn shit I’ve ever heard.”

He looks at the wall, and something moves across his face.

“You would’ve done the same,” he says.

“I jumped off a cliff,” I say. “I’m not sure stubborn is the right word.”

He lets out a short surprised laugh, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve made him do that.

We keep walking.

He shows me the fluid creatures up close. They’re old, older than him. One stops right in front of me, looks at me with those solid silver eyes, then bows its head.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“It’s recognizing you,” Kael says slowly. “As belonging here, to the Abyss.” He meets my eyes. “To me.”

The creature lifts its head and moves on.

I look down at our hands, still holding tight. He looks too and we don’t say anything about it.

We end up back in the garden as the Abyss does its evening thing, colors getting deeper and ight getting richer.

We sit in the middle of the garden on the warm ground with all the glowing plants around us, still holding hands the whole time.

“Tell me something you’ve never told anyone,” I say.

He looks up at the sky and thinks.

“I still talk to Eli sometimes,” he says. “When it’s really quiet and the Abyss is bad, I just tell him what’s happening, what I’m thinking and it helps.”

I look at him.

“What do you tell him?” I ask.

“Recently?” He pauses. “Mostly about you.”

My heart does a flip.

“What would he say back if he could?” I ask.

Kael almost smiles.

“He’d tell me I’m being an idiot about it,” he says. “He always said that when I overthought shit, he was usually right.”

I look at him.

“He was right,” I say.

We’re sitting really close, closer than usual. Garden floor, evening light, everything glowing.

“Aria,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“Tomorrow changes everything,” he says. “Whatever happens with the pack, the Council, all of it. I need you to know that this was worth it, you were worth it. Worth every mark on that wall.”

I look at him, at those silver eyes.

I reach up and put my hand on his face.

He goes completely still.

“You’re going to be okay,” I say quietly. “After tomorrow, whatever happens with the curse. You’re going to be okay.”

He covers my hand with his, holding it against his face.

“I know,” he says, very quiet. “Because you said so.”

I lean in and he meets me halfway.

We kiss, soft at first, then deeper. His arm goes around me and pulls me closer until I’m basically in his lap, our bodies pressed together while we cuddle on the garden floor.

When we kiss, the whole garden lights up like crazy. Every plant flares bright, the sideways tree’s roots lift a little, fhe flower spins on its stem. Even the walls in the distance get brighter.

I pull back a little and stare at his face.

“You look… different,” I say.

“What?” He touches his own face.

“Younger,” I say. “The curse threads are loosening. Not broken yet, but reacting.”

He looks at his hands, the scars are still there but they look less harsh.

We stare at each other.

“Aria,” he says.

“Don’t say anything,” I say. “Just give me a second.”

He waits, still holding me close, arms around me.

I look at him, this guy who waited a hundred years, built a garden, marked a wall every day, and stayed stubborn as hell.

“Okay,” I say after a bit.

“Okay?” he asks.

“I’ve had my second,” I say.

He smiles a little, something new in his face.

“Come here,” I say.

He pulls me right back in and we kiss again, cuddling tight on the warm garden floor while everything around us glows brighter.

The whole Abyss seems to know what this is, tomorrow can wait.

Today is this, us holding each other. And it’s more than enough.