The Sweetest Dark

by Shana Abe

  I hadn’t come out here for his bedroom. I hadn’t planned on being strong enough for that.

  My hand pushed open the door.

  I stood fixed in place, not breathing. I had no breath left in me. All the gold in the room had stolen it, and I might not ever breathe again.

  I’d dreamed once of a forest of gold, and Jesse had done what he could to give it to me. His bedroom had been transformed into a wonderland of leaves and flowers, pinecones and branches of birch and oak, all of it glimmering, all of it singing. The bed was covered, his chest of drawers, the sill.

  Much of it was jumbled together, beautiful for what it was if not its presentation. Jesse had last left this room on the night of his death, right after he’d called to me, right before he’d gone to the castle. So he would have been scattering his final gift in haste, knowing he worked against the clock.

  Knowing, somehow, what was to come.

  Which meant he’d been making gold for weeks. When I’d seen him so tired, when he’d told me all those nights that we should rest apart … he had been doing this.

  For me.

  A folded note had been set upon the bed. My name had been scrawled upon it.

  I love you was all it said inside.

  I sank to the floor. I looked up and all around as the sun danced through the window and turned Jesse’s room into an ambered heaven of song and shimmer and sparks.

  That was how Armand found me, hours later. That was what he saw, as well, what he heard, as he walked slowly into the chamber and eased down beside me to rest his back against the bed.

  We sat there together, listening, marveling.

  In time, his hand reached out and took firm hold of mine.

  Epilogue

  So now you know the beginning of her story, and the ending of mine. The end of my mortal time with her, at least.

  But I’m not really gone. I’ll never really leave her. How could I? She had been carved from the mud of the world just for me. I had fallen from the stars for her.

  I told you before: Once a drákon holds your eyes and touches your flesh, you belong to them. And, believe me, when that happens, you’re glad for it. You lay your heart at their feet and hope for their favor, knowing its true worth.

  Our time together had been so short. Every turn of the planet, every hour and minute and second, I had loved her and celebrated her. And I considered myself blessed, even unto death, to have known her smile. The rapture of Eleanore.

  Blessed to offer myself up for her.

  Lora-of-the-moon. She’ll fly my way again. I know it.

  I dwell high above her now, back with my first family. The path of my dragon’s earthly life shines before me like a skein of glittering crimson thread. It crisscrosses the mortal plane, tracing its way from the Atlantic, where she took her first breath, east to Europe, where she will take her last. Armand’s thread glitters, too, plaited through hers.

  The war will entangle them even more. The war will do its best to snip both threads short.

  It is a thing of gore and violence. War cannot abide magic of any sort, much less a magic as brilliant as theirs.

  I’ll be the star above them both, watching. Singing.

  I’d waited for her nearly all my life. I can wait a while longer, until she turns her ear up to the night skies, ready to hear my ballad once more.

  For all my readers—Thank you for taking this journey with me

  Acknowledgments

  I have been blessed with the best people: Annelise Robey and Andrea Cirillo, and everyone at the fabulous Jane Rotrosen Agency. Shauna Summers and all the brilliant folks at Random House who work so hard to make me shine. Sean, of the steady hand and kind soul. And, of course, all of you reading this now. Thank you.

  About the Author

  SHANA ABÉ is the bestselling author of thirteen novels, including the acclaimed Drákon Series. She lives in Colorado in a happy house with a good many pets.

  www.shanaabe.com