Page 126 of Aïdes the Unseen
Not yet.
But he had chosen me, too.
“Okay,” I said aloud, and rose again.
The chamber pulsed behind me, something deeper now. Like the memory had stirred the foundation. A hum that crawled across my skin and into my blood.
I looked at the next door and I felt it before I heard it. The shift in the air.
Anticipation.
Something was coming.
Someone.
For once, I didn’t flinch. I rolled my shoulders back, heart steady. "Let her come," I whispered.
Whatever Demeter thought I was still carrying for her, whether it was grief, guilt, or obedience, I would face it. I would face her.
With Graven beside me.
With the hound guarding my path.
With every piece of myself I’d reclaimedlighting the way forward.
The silence was too sharp, too vast. If I let it, it would swallow me whole.
So instead, I looked at Graven, took in the way he crouched beside the doorway like some mythic sentinel in a T-shirt and worn jeans, barefoot and glorious, and said, “This is definitely not the outfit I imagined wearing to face a goddess.”
He glanced over at me. “You’re not a fan of the robe?”
I tugged at the fabric. “It’s cozy. It’s also aggressively not armor.”
His mouth curled. “I find it… dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” I arched a brow.
He leaned closer, voice lowering. “Something about bare feet and nothing to lose.”
That drew a startled laugh from me. The kind that cracked a little, uncertain and breathless. “You’re ridiculous.”
“And you love that about me.”
“I’m still deciding,” I shot back, grinning despite everything.
The dog huffed and flopped against my leg like he was tired of waiting. I reached down to stroke his ears, then looked back up at Graven, more serious now.
“Do you trust me?” I asked.
Graven didn’t hesitate. Not for a heartbeat. “With all that I am.”
I stretched out for him without thinking, brushing my fingers along the sharp line of his cheekbone, marveling at the warmth there.God of the dead, yes—but soalivein this moment it made my chest ache.
“Then know I will always find you,” I whispered.
His gaze burned steady into mine. “And I will never give up.”
We lingered there in the hush between heartbeats—gods and ghosts and past lives held at bay for the smallest, mosteternalmoment.
