Page 156 of An Archer's Redemption

We returned to Rea Utu as the last of the wedding festivals ended. Keelan and Jess made a striking couple. I even caught my big brother smiling and waving at the cheering crowds.

Magic was clearly alive in the world.

I knew we should go inside, to see what Atikus was destroying in the kitchen, but something in the night air held me in place. As much as I always said I craved freedom, I was coming to realize that thepeaceI felt in this place was far more important than the power to roam freely.

Here, I was alive.

Here, I was free.

The brine of the ocean tickled my nose.

“You are thinking. I can see steam curling out of your ears.” Ayden’s smirk was infectious.

I laughed and shook my head. “I do think from time to time.”

“Care to share?”

I smiled, a fond sadness seizing my heart. “I was just thinking of my mother.”

“I wish I could have met her.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he had met her, that she had wrapped him in her arms and kissed his cheek, accepting him with the love only a mother can bestow. There would have been no harm in telling him. The magic of the place would steal that memory, too, when we again headed home.

It seemed somehow cruel, dangling that knowledge before him, knowing how it would frustrate him to not remember someone so special.

“Despite the swiftness of the outside world’s turning, our time here was measured in years. I didn’t just meet the mother I thought long dead; I came to know her. I came to love her.”

“I’m sorry, Dec.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and squeezed me tight against him.

“When I close my eyes, I can still see her bright eyes and mischievous grin. Keelan would probably say I inherited both of those traits.”

“He would be right.”

I chuckled and stared out into the forest below.

“I was so young, a boy of only three, when I was told my parents were gone. I think I understood, but who truly knows the mind of a child?”

My mother did.

That thought curled my lips again.

“I know it sounds crazy, but she came to mean so much in such a short time.” I blinked away tears. One still managed to escape. “She taught me how to tap into my power. Spirits, she taught methat Ihadpower. Her patience was as limitless as the sea. But she taught me so much more than magic.”

Ayden’s arm fell away, and I rested my head against the pillar.

“I was so lost when I arrived on Rea Utu.” I couldn’t look at him as I spoke my next words. “Life made no sense back then. I’d fled the capital and joined the Rangers, more to escape than to run toward anything. I spent so many nights alone in the woods atop the mountains that I wondered if being around people would ever feel natural or good.”

And then I met Ayden.

That arrogant, irritating noble’s son who refused to be ruffled by my bitterness. How I hated that man and his perfectly coiffed hair and glistening teeth. Who is drawn to men with red hair anyway? What madness possessed me?

I couldn’t imagine life without him.

Without his smile . . . or playful winks . . . or infuriating positivity.

I shifted our hands so mine gripped his, and I held him as a drowning man clings to a raft.

“Mother accepted me. Without question or complaint. That was an act of magic and healing I doubted even she understood. She hadn’t just given permission for me to love another. She showed me how to love myself.”

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