Emberwood swallows circling with their shimmering sound

Nothing appeared to be the right thing to say, because Akuti stepped into the silence and settled against his chest, and an ache whose presence he'd been denying began to ease. His breath came out in a whoosh of relief, surprise, trepidation - and he settled down to rest his chin against her head, marvelling again at how everything just fit with her, at how it couldn't be his imagination, his denial of reality - how it couldn't be that. Not again.

"I'm sorry I let you go," he replied, his voice made gravelly by emotion. "And for everything else."

His heartbeat - quickened by her arrival and then by her sudden proximity - began to slow once more.