Though it was still too soon to say if things had changed, there was more than enough of the Zevulun she’d known left for her to be happy. That much Sabriel could know. Whatever time had altered in the pale stallion, it’d left the core of him untouched. He was still a light to the dark sorrows of her soul, still a warmth that wrapped tendrils around her heart and lifted her up beside him. The black-coated mare watched Zevulun’s lips curl up at the memory she’d reawakened, and in their locked gazes they shared so much more. They should’ve had a hundred moments like that by now, but Sabriel would treasure the ones that they had, and resolved to make more. If this stallion was her light, she wanted to be his too. She wanted to lead him somewhere brighter than the worry-wrinkles etched in his face showed that he’d been.

Leaning into the brush of his muzzle against her tangled white hair, the silver black let him lead this moment into whatever he needed it to be. She knew that she owed him an explanation for her disappearance, but perhaps he didn’t need to hear it yet. Perhaps the best way to love him was to let him have this moment apart from the past and without concern for the future. I’m happy that you’re alright. “And I’m glad that you’re still here,” she murmured, her sea-blue eyes raking over his coat. A fleeting frown tugged at her lips; had all those scars been there before? It was difficult to know, faint as they showed on his pale pink skin. But whatever the answer, it was clear that Zevulun’s life in the Prairie had not been without its trials.


Could she have helped him to shoulder those burdens if she’d been here? Guilt squirmed in Sabriel’s belly, but she did her best to push it aside. There was nothing she could change about what was already written; that ink was dry. Only the future could be changed.

Sometimes life is too much to stay in one place for too long. The dark woman’s throat tightened, her gaze holding his desperately. The way that Zevulun worded it made it sound as if she hadn’t been happier here than ever before in her life. As if she could have had any doubts about him — when the only ones that filled her were for her own self. But even so, those doubts could not have held her away from him. Only one thing could have ever called her from his side. It’s okay Sabriel, I understand. And — perhaps he did. From what she’d seen of the cremello, he was a dedicated and doting father. If any man could understand the overpowering love of a mother for her children, Zevulun could.

“That’s not—” she began, her voice faint for these first couple syllables but building in strength the longer she spoke. “That wasn’t how it is, Zevulun. That isn’t how it is for me. Being with you is freedom, and joy, and love. I didn’t want to leave.” But she still had, and would still make that same choice now even knowing that there was nothing she could do. Because that was her daughter in pain, and she would’ve sooner been there to catch Lirael’s tears than have condemned her to face her grief alone. “I can tell you why, when and if you want to know. But the short answer is that my daughter needed me, Zev. And I couldn’t let her down again.”

If only she hadn’t had to let Zevulun and their son down in answering Lirael’s plea. But life was full of such cruel choices, and Sabriel had learned that refusing to choose was often the worst option of all. Instead, she had made her choice and would come to terms with its consequences — whatever they should be.