Chapter 21: By Her Choice

Wynne's POV

He did not come to the cabin door.

I found him at dusk on the ridge behind it, at the top of the bald hill where my grandmother used to take me to watch the weather come up the valley.

He was standing with his hands empty at his sides.

I had not told him to come here.

"Maeve told me," Bram said, before I asked. "She said it's where the rite is done."

"You said it takes two people on the same hill."

"I did."

"You never went up it."

"No."

"Ask me," I said.

The wind pulled at the green cloak.

Below us the valley had gone blue, and the lights of the Ashmoor houses were coming on one by one.

He took a long breath.

"Wynne Larkin. I don't ask you to forgive me. I don't ask you to forget it.

"I ask you for one thing, and you can say no and I'll go down the hill and never come back up it.

"Will you choose me? Not because of the mark, or the bond, or the charter. Because you want to."

I let it hang a moment.

I wanted him to feel the weight of it.

"Yes," I said.

His face did something terrible and wonderful.

"The rite," I said. "How does it go?"

"I put my palm on your mark. You put yours on mine. We say the words, and the bond is mended."

"And if I only say them half?"

"Then it doesn't take."

"Then I'll say them all."

I reached up and laid my left palm on the side of his neck.

The skin under it was already hot.

He lifted his scarred hand and covered the place on mine, under my hair.

The bond hummed between our two hands.

"I take you," I said. My voice was steady, and I was proud of it. "Not because I have to. I take you with open eyes and the whole of what you did."

"I take you," said Bram, hoarse, "with the whole of what I owe."

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