Page 62 of Kiss of Smoke

It was a warm spring day when I decided I was ready. I could’ve yawned and gone back to the darkness, but I’d felt the vibrations of footsteps through my root network early that morning.

I knew the taste of his magic as Gwyn hugged my trunk, settling down at my feet to talk.

His voice was audible now, even if it was muffled.

“I wish I could tell you Ceri and Beans were getting along, but…yeah. No. They definitely aren’t getting along.” He let out a chuckle, but it sounded hollow to me. “But they’ve amicably split the office and living room between themselves.”

He went quiet for a moment as I reached out mentally, holding on to the sound of his voice. I shifted within my dark confines; wood had become bone, bark my skin, rainwater my blood.

The magic had changed it, reforming me into what I had once been.

“Wish you were here, Briallen,” he said quietly. I heard the rustle of his jacket against the tree bark as he shifted. “We’ve just been getting ready for you to come back, and hoping… every day I wake up, and hope that this is the day.”

He held his breath, and I moved my hands. The center of the tree had hollowed out a space to accomodate me, and I asked it to release me.

The entire tree shuddered.

Through my last tenuous connection with the tree, I felt Gwyn get up and whirl around.

The bark split, drawing back like a veil. After seasons in the dark, my eyes began watering immediately as the first ray of piercing light hit them.

The touch of warm sunshine on my actual skin was like being hugged by the world and welcomed back into it.

I took a deep breath of real air, smiling when I saw the shock on Gwyn’s face. He took a tentative step forward, then held his arms out, catching me as I tumbled out of the tree.

It closed behind me, sealing the gap and leaving a knotted mark on the tree.

“Sorry,” I said, my voice rough and scratchy. “Haven’t had legs in awhile.”

They were trembling a little, but Gwyn held me up, his smoke and incense scent filling my nose. At this point, my tears weren’t just from the brightness of the sun, but from the sheer happiness of beingrealagain.

He didn’t reply; he just hugged me tightly, burying his face in my hair. I wrapped my arms around him, happy to just be held.

It took a long, long time before we broke apart. Gwyn hardly blinked, touching my face and hair as though to make sure I was real and this wasn’t just a dream, and I hiccupped on a laugh.

“Today was the day.” I rose up on my toes and kissed him, proving the point.

“I missed you so much,” he whispered against my mouth.

His eyes dropped, and I looked down as well.

My clothes had dissolved, because a tree had no need for clothes, and I’d come out stark naked.

But sinking into my secondary form had also given me the time I needed to heal. The last of the cold iron had been leached out of me, and my wounds had healed.

There were white, pearly scars left on my shoulder, stomach, and thigh, round wounds where Ioin’s bullets had passed through me.

Gwyn touched the scar on my shoulder, then let out a deep breath. He tugged off his shirt, the soft green one with the ram’s skull on it, and pulled it over my head.

“Thanks,” I said, pulling the hem down so everything was covered. I was starting to remember that we were technically out in the open, and while being naked as a tree was one thing, I didn’t want any passing pixies to get an eyeful of my normal self. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

Gwyn’s mouth opened and closed a few times; he seemed utterly incapable of looking away.

Finally, he just shook his head. “I feel like I’m going to wake up and this is all going to vanish.”

“Then let’s prove it’s not a dream,” I told him, hugging him again. “I suppose we need a third party to confirm? Help me out, Jack.”

It was like the entire world went still as soon as I said his name.

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