Chapter 223: Letting her join the battle.
Later, as Kai prepared to leave Thegara, Ren approached him for the tenth time. Her persistence was unwavering. She wouldn’t draw back. This time, she would convince him, she had to, to let her join the war.
"My love, please," Ren whispered, stepping closer. "Let me come with you."
She hesitated, her voice trailing into the silence between them. "In every future, you saw, every one where I stayed behind, they found a way to kill me. But in the last one...the only one where I lived, I was fighting."
Kai’s frown deepened. He set his helmet down beside him. Pure gold, its surface gleamed beneath the dim light of the candle. A wolf was carved into the brow, noble and fierce, while a dragon curled across the back, eternally coiled, eternally watching.
He turned and met her eyes with a sharp glare. "How can you ask this of me?" His voice cracked like ice under pressure. "You carry our children, and you ask your husband to toss you into the fire?"
Ren bowed her head, unshaken. "With me, Ogain grows stronger. I don’t even have to ride him. I can stay near and channel my power into him, a living shield to protect him if he’s struck."
Kai let out a huff of frustration, his breath clouding in the cold Royal armory. This was madness.
’Let her come with us,’ Shadow’s voice stirred, low and pleading, in the back of his mind.
"No," Kai said firmly. "You’ll stay here. I will kill that giant."
’I’m weak!’ Shadow lied, feigning it. He wanted Ren next to him. But Kai knew it already.
Ren pouted, lips trembling with frustration. He was going to burn himself down, him and Shadow both, just to keep her safe.