Page 28 of The Shattered Rite
And once, we burned.
Eliryn gripped the stone, her humor faltering. “I’m guessing those two are connected.”
A long silence.
Yes.
Her throat worked, but no words came. Not until her voice cracked small and hopeless:
“So why are you here in the Undermire?”
Because I am the last.
That silenced even her sarcasm.
I watched the world forget my name. Watched my kin die one by one. And still I remained. Not for glory. Not for revenge.
“For me,” she whispered, the realization slicing clean through her. “You waited for me.”
I've been awaiting the start of the prophecy. Waiting for fate. And when you were born, I felt you. The beginnings of a bond ignited. From your first breath, I knew.
Eliryn sagged. “Gods.”
You were not what I expected.
She almost laughed. “That makes two of us.”
Vaeronth’s exhale stirred her hair, carrying the scent of old fire and dust.
I was meant to find a warrior. A leader. Not a girl who trips over her own feet.
“I do not trip.”
Silence.
She huffed. “I don’t trip that often.”
Another silence.
“Try flying without your vision and come talk to me after you hit a couple trees.”
A sound like distant stone cracking… not quite laughter, but close.
“Okay. Fine.” She rubbed a hand over her face, exhaustion gnawing at her. “So you’re stuck with me. A half-blind, slightly-cursed, vaguely traumatized healer who can’t tell her left from her right some mornings.”
You are my bonded.
“I don’t know how to be that.”
You will learn.
Her voice broke, her self-deprecation cracking into something raw.
“I don’t know how to be what you need,” she whispered, her voice crumbling. “I’m not… enough.”
A long pause. Then Vaeronth’s voice, low and certain as mountain stone:
It isn’t about what we need.
