Page 201 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

Garrik chuckled, placing his hands on the stone beside her and caging her there, and placed a kiss to her temple. “Indeed.”

Again, shadows whorled.

Youngling’s giggling and tiny feet padding along crunched stones met them. Alora barely stepped when a parade of faelings raced by. She gasped at the symphony of laughter. The buildings, street, and climbing courses made for younglings to play.

Alora cupped her chest, knowing why it ached so terribly that she almost fell to her knees.

Tears silently flooded down her face as … as a young male with membranous wings and night-blue eyes flew above them. Two others, a female with brown eyes and a male with gray hair, giggled while following below.

Little Wings.From Alynthia.Brown-eyes and Little Gray… The three orphaned younglings. “You brought them here,” she sobbed, seeing how their frail and thin bodies were growing fuller, color returned to their clean flesh.

Garrik brushed a tear away. “I could not leave them to the whims of our cruel world.” Alora turned and threw her arms around his neck, uncontrollably sobbing into him as he continued, “There are hundreds of orphans being raised here. When old enough, they can decide to remain and mentor the next generation or return to Elysian to start anew. Those with magic are trained in their skills. They, too, decide their future when old enough to make wise decisions. Deimon left this world to join the legion.”

When her tears finally ceased, Smokeshadows dawned them from that world too.

It was like she soared through endless portals, only there was no lightning storm. Garrik held her through it all. Both wonderstruck as they parted the shadows from one world to the next.

The impossible depthof gleaming crystalline white before her was enough to convince her he’d dawned them inside a star.

But those weren’t starflames glistening. And they weren’t gemstones.

Those were pearlseas—an endless sea of them.

Anentireworld of them.

Magnelis had tried to ruin Airathel’s gardens. But Alora imagined he didn’t know when he murdered the High Queen that her memory would live forever—here and in every world Garrik brought her to that night.

She still lives—amidst the flowers. She heard Garrik think just like the last time they stood in a mystical meadow such as this.

“Mother created this world after Magnelis usurped Elysian,” he started. Ushering her around bushes, weaving between petals as white as her gown.

He fell silent, observing the petals as if he wished to pluck one but released it before continuing along.

After some time, Garrik quietly said, “On Elysian’s peaceful nights, not knowing of my torturous ones, I clung to myself onherbalcony, trembling and drenched in her scent as I found the night sky. Most nights, I would sit and stare into a void, pleading for the stars to end my life when I was too cowardly to do so myself.”

Garrik’s eyes went distant. “But on others,” he rasped, face brightening. “When I could not hear the voice reminding me to breathe, I would dream of my mother’s worlds. Of this one especially.”

‘The flowers were where I found peace, too.’

Alora laced her fingers through Garrik’s as he stopped in the near middle of that field. Eyes glistening in the brightest silver she’d ever seen. “And what about this world?” It had become sort of a custom for him to explain each one. So, she asked, “What happened here?”

Through the tether, like the swell and crash of a mighty wave, Alora felt Garrik on guard. A wall of shadow grew and morphed like a shield.

He looked at her as if it were the first time. Studying every detail, burning them to memory. The way her gown flowed over every curve. The snow and ice-like details. He scanned to the crown weaved through her hair, then he found her lips and at last answered in a voice so unlike him, “Here is where I confess.”

A harsh swallow. He appeared to be preparing for battle as the beautiful planes of his face softened and met her eyes.

“I love you, Alora. I have loved you long before my eyes saw you.”

The world—this one and all the rest—went silent.

Alora could only blink.

Garrik released her hand and stepped away. No matter the distance, her soul ached. “The night you kissed my scars, you said that one day I would share my every secret.” He paused, searching her eyes. Then added, “There is one story remaining.”

Why did it feel like the day she had lost her parents? Like she was entering the smuggler’s caves to never seehimagain?

He pulled a silver ring from his finger. It gleamed in the moonlight.

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