She wept until her eyes ran dry, leaning against her shadowy groom. Once her sniffles faded, the two sat in silence. Anders stroked her hair. His hand caught in a tangle. Swallowing hard, he searched for his voice. “Come now, let’s get your hair looking nice for our last sunrise.” 

Gingerly, he combed his fingers through her tresses, untangling the snags. He had been braiding her hair as long as he’d been unraveling it. It was one final act of intimacy between them.

“Should I move into the moonlight?” Gwynnyth asked.

“I can see just fine in the dark.”

“You always have, somehow. It makes sense now.”

The chill from the stones seeped under Anders’ skin, but still he removed his hood and draped it around Gwynnyth’s shoulders. He expected her to flinch at his touch, but she didn’t.

“Are you a demon, Andre?”

“I’m only a shadow. Nothing more, and that’s the truth.”

“How are you alive?”

“The very same fairy who I met in the forest to wish for a son brought me to life all those years ago.”

“And you kept this from me? All along...”

“I was scared. I was wrong to hide it.”

Gwynnyth still shivered, so he wrapped his arms around her. She leaned back against his chest. “You were right to hide, but not from me. Never from me.”

He held his breath to keep from sobbing.

Questions filled her head, but she had no strength to put them into words. Anders stroked her forever-throbbing gut. The harder she stared at his hands, the less she was able to see them. Exhaustion overwhelmed her. She succumbed to sleep in the arms of a shadow.

Anders marked her breathing, feeling her chest rise and fall. I failed you, my love, he thought through tears, but at last he gave in to sleep as well.