Page 148 of Unravelled
He took a step toward her, voice raw with everything he couldn’t yet say. “Mira,”
She turned. “Tharion?” she called, voice light. Easy. Familiar.
Ren’s breath left him like a blade through the chest. The pain tore through him. Sudden. Final. His knees hit the floor. The impact barely registered. His fists slammed against the cold stone. His body curled inward. A sound broke from his chest, raw, wounded. His shoulders shook as the grief took him.
Mira stood just feet away. He could feel her presence. Even through the bond’s ragged silence. She stepped forward, hesitant. Her face was concerned, but distant. A friend's concern. Before she could speak, Tharion appeared in the doorway.
He moved fast. Shielded him. Then knelt. Between her and Ren. His hands closed around Ren’s shoulders. Firm. Grounding. Ren trembled. Didn’t even feel it. Tharion pulled him close. Steady. Sure. Ren collapsed into him. His fists twisted in Tharion’s tunic. His breath came in short, broken gasps against his friend’s shoulder.
“I heard... the bells” Tharion murmured. “When she didn't ask for you....I’m sorry, Ren. ”
The words meant nothing. Because the truth between them was heavier. It wasn’t just Sarelle he mourned. It was Mira. His Mira. Who stood just steps away, unknowing. Unseeing. Tharion’s grip tightened. One hand on Ren’s neck. One on his shoulder.
“Come on” he whispered. “Not like this.”
Ren didn’t move. Couldn’t. Tharion shifted. Braced his weight. Held him together when everything inside was falling apart.
“Please, Ren.” The words cut through the haze. Ren’s body shook. His head bowed. His grief spilled unchecked. His mother was dead. Mira was gone.
Tharion was the only thing keeping him from drowning.
45
Mira
The world bled back into existence in slow, aching fragments.
A breeze stirred the branches of the Tahla tree above her, leaves whispering against one another, their glow fractured by the moonlight spilling through the garden. The scent of damp earth and tahla filled her lungs, grounding her, tethering her to the present as the past slammed into her all at once.
Mira gasped, a sharp, broken sound, her fingers digging into the cool grass beneath her as the weight of forgotten time crashed over her like a tidal wave.
Images flickered behind her eyes, memories buried, stolen, burned away, rising now from the ashes. Ren’s voice. His touch. His love. Him. The bond, once hollow and frayed, thrummed with renewed life, surging through her like a wildfire reignited. It was overwhelming. Scorching. Undeniable. Every emotion she had once lost came back tenfold. Love. Grief. Longing. Fury.
But beneath it all, one truth had never left her. Not really. Not even when Caelric had tried to erase it from her mind.
Ren. Her vision swam, but only one thing came into focus, him. Ren’s face hovered just inches from hers, green eyes locked onto hers with an intensity that stole what little breath she had left.
He was shaking. His hands cradled her face, warm against her chilled skin, thumbs brushing slowly over her cheekbones like he had done countless times before.
Through the bond, she felt everything. His raw and jagged grief. His unrelenting fear. The panic that she might vanish again if he blinked. But beneath it all, stronger than the pain, deeper than the terror, was a singular, burning thing. Love. Unyielding. Undiminished.
Mira didn’t pull away. She leaned into him, her fingers rising to press over his, grounding herself in the weight of him, in the warmth she had lost for too long.
Her voice trembled as she spoke, barely more than a whisper. “Ren…”
He drew in a sharp breath, the sound ragged in the silence. He stilled beneath her touch, afraid that if he moved, she might vanish.
His voice was fragile, reverent, laced with something between hope and dread. “Mira?”
There was a pause, just a breath, just long enough for the ache to bloom.
Then softly, achingly, “My Kalren...”
She surged up and kissed him. It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t careful. It was everything. A collision of desperation and hunger. A kiss that held too much pain, too much time, too much longing to be anything gentle. His lips crashed against hers like a dam breaking, all restraint gone, like he needed to feel her with every part of himself just to believe she was real.
Mira clung to him, her hands fisting into his shirt, pulling him closer. She had missed this. Missed him. More than she had words for. Ren kissed her like he’d been drowning for months, like she was the first breath of air he’d been allowed to take.
His tears mixed with hers as she deepened the kiss, hands threading into his hair, anchoring herself to the only thing in the world that mattered.
