The Continent (The Continent #1)(95)

He touches me lightly, just above the collarbone. “Many of your knives are missing, Vaela, and there are bruises upon your neck.”

“I am alive, Noro.”

“Did you take life today?”

“I did what any Aven’ei would have done,” I say, echoing his words from the night we first met.

There is sadness in his eyes. “This is not a burden I wanted for you.”

“I know.”

“I will help you bear it.”

“I know that, too.”

He pulls me close and rests his chin atop my head. “We have lost much today.”

I close my eyes and think of Yuki, so strong and skilled, dead in half a second. Grief tugs at me, familiar and new, beckoning me to that dark place of loss and regret. How I long to be home in the cottage, where I might entertain my memories and cry for the empty place she has left in the world. I pull away, and Noro releases me.

“Have you seen Takashi?” I ask. “Does he live?”

Noro nods. “He is alive, but none the happier for it now that Yuki is gone. He is badly wounded—the healers are seeing to him now.”

“Shoshi Kaken lives,” I say. “He saved my life.”

Noro thinks on this for a moment, then gives me a small smile. “For this, I shall swear to him my everlasting friendship. No matter how much it may pain me to do so.”

“People change. Just look at you: a smile on your face and hope in your heart.” He kisses me, and I wrap my arms about his neck. “What do we do, now that the war is ended?”

“Now,” he says, “we bury the dead, help the wounded, and go back to life in Hayato.”

“A life without war,” I say.

“We shall see.”

“It is done now,” I say, gesturing up at the heli-planes. “The West has come to ensure peace. You need never wear the shadow of the itzatsune again.”

“Always be mine, Vaela Sun, and no shadow shall ever pass before me.”

I kiss him lightly on the lips. “I am yours, Noro. Now, and always, in war and peace, on the Continent or anywhere else.”

A light breeze kicks up around us, swirling dust from the field into spinning cones that sweep across the plain. I look into the eyes of the man I love, and I know peace once again. For now.

Sometimes, now is enough.