“There’s always a choice.” He bowed his head until his forehead touched hers.
“No, sometimes there isn’t. And I’m fine. Andrasta came to get me. I’m here now.”
He shook his head.
“Cadan, you believe in nothing. If you’d died, we wouldn’t be together here.”
“I believe in you. You are my heaven.” He looked at her fiercely.
That punched the breath right out of her and the words followed. “I love you.” She did. Forever loved him. What had been an inkling before was now a full-fledged storm within her. “I love you.”
***
Cadan stared down at the vision in front of him. It was the most realistic yet. And she loved him. It was a dream, as the others had been.
The last days had passed in a blur as he’d searched for her in the tunnels, out of his mind with grief. To have her here, now, after he’d thought her dead for so long was too much to believe.
But even his fevered imagination couldn’t conjure her love for him. And she felt warm under his hands, and real. As solid and alive as she had before they’d gone into Erebus.
“Diana,” he whispered, and searched her eyes for the truth. She was everything that was strong and beautiful and good in the world, and she loved him?
He felt her hands slide up his back and around to his front. She gripped his face gently and drew it down to hers. “I’m real, Cadan, and alive. And so are you. And I love you.” She crushed her mouth to his and he finally believed her. Even he couldn’t come up with a vision this realistic.
“Diana. I love you. More than you’ll ever know.”
She broke away from him and reached for one of his bloodied hands. It had long since healed, but it bore the evidence of his first crazed attempts to reach the portal to Erebus again.
She kissed his hands. She looked up at him, her expression vulnerable. “You love me, right? Not Boudica? I couldn’t bear to fight for a love I can’t get.”
She thought she was unloved? “Diana, you are loved. I love you, more than I ever loved anyone else, more than my own soul.” He pressed one hard kiss to her mouth. “She was special to me, and she brought me to you. But I didn’t know what love was then. You taught me that.”
She smiled up at him, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“You were right,” he said. “What we had then was strong, but neither of us was ready to truly love. She, because of her daughters and her cause, and I, because I hadn’t met you yet.”
The smile she gave him was brilliant. When he looked down at her, he saw a future that he’d never known to hope for. But an errant thought sucked the breath from him. She was mortal. How long could she possibly live? He couldn’t survive losing her again.
“Diana, doona worry, we’ll find a way to make you immortal like me. And if no’, when you die, so will I.”
She looked at him quizzically. “When I die, you will, too?”
“I’ll find a way.” That, he was absolutely certain of. There would be no more penance with the Mythean Guard, and there would be no more life without her. It would be with her, or it wouldn’t be at all.
“You won’t have to.” She reached up to stroke his cheek and he leaned into her hand. “Because of the strength of my soul, Andrasta gave me the option of the same type of immortality that you have. I want to be with you, so I took it.”
Hope blossomed within him, a light that he hadn’t felt in millennia. “Really?”
“Of course. It was no decision at all.”
A grin spread across his face. It had been an impossible situation, yet Diana had managed it. “All right, then—let’s get out of here. We’ve got some living to do.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Boudica is the historical figure who most captivated me from a young age. She was brave, strong, and she fought against incredible odds. Her story stuck in my mind for years. It was only natural that she become the heroine of Braving Fate. I wanted to create a world where Boudica could have a happy ending. The only way to do that without messing with history too much was to bring her back through reincarnation and give her the life she deserved. If you’re interested in learning which history I portrayed accurately and where I outright lied to improve the story, please read on…