"Don't you resent him for that? He raided your village and stole your children, Rhazir. He put you at risk of your life for someone who has never had to worry about the next meal or having a fire deep in the winter, only about a cloaked dagger in the back from one of the stolen servants. And who could blame the servant? It would be Dorin's own work that put the knife in the servant's hand."
The words hung between us like drawn blades, accusations and confessions tangled together in ways that made my head spin. But looking into his eyes, seeing the self-loathing that lived there like a cancer, I found truth spilling from my lips before I could stop it.
"It has brought me to you," I heard myself say, the words emerging raw and unguarded. "You are worth the dangers and the risks. I'd gladly stand between you and a knife. And I cannot resent aman for giving me into your service, Your Highness."
It was the closest I'd ever come to saying what burned in my chest like swallowed fire, and I watched his eyes widen with dawning understanding.
"Serin," he whispered, his voice barely audible above the night wind through olive branches.
"Serin," I repeated, finally able to speak his name like the prayer it had always been.
We stared at each other across the small space that might as well have been an ocean, silence stretching taut as a bowstring between us. Inside my chest, a storm raged, eight years of buried longing, of unspoken words, of love so fierce it threatened to consume me entirely.
"And you are wrong," he said softly, regret coloring every syllable. "It isn't that he hasn't loved you back. He only never learned how."
My heart hammered against my ribs like a caged bird desperate for freedom. "I would never fault him for that," I managed, though breathing had become a conscious battle.
"Perhaps he doesn't deserve you, then." His voice was barely more than breath, and then the careful mask he wore cracked entirely. "But I want you very much nonetheless."
The world tilted on its axis. I leaned forward without conscious thought, drawn by forces beyondmy ability to resist, but stopped before closing the distance between us. The gap felt insurmountable, prince and bodyguard, noble and commoner, the gulf of station and duty that had always defined us.
When I hesitated there, poised between heartbreak and hope, Serin's hand rose to cup my face with infinite gentleness. His thumb traced the line of my cheekbone as if committing it to memory, and then he was leaning forward, closing the distance I couldn't cross myself.
His lips met mine with desperate hunger, eight years of longing compressed into a single moment of contact. The kiss was molten fire and liquid moonlight, velvet and steel, everything I had never dared to dream and more than I'd thought possible. It tasted of wine and possibility, of jasmine-scented nights and futures I'd never allowed myself to imagine.
When we finally broke apart, gasping like drowning men suddenly granted air, his forehead rested against mine and I could feel his breath against my lips like a summer breeze.
"Rhazir," he whispered, and in his voice I heard wonder and fear..
The olive grove held its breath around us, silver-touched and sacred, witness to the moment when everything I'd thought I knew about my life crumbled to ash and was reborn as something entirely new.
I inhaled deeply, my chest shuddering with the weight of what we had just done. The taste of him lingered on my lips like honey wine, sweet and intoxicating and utterly forbidden.
"Serin," I whispered, his name a prayer and a confession all at once.
"Forgive me," I blurted, the words tumbling from my lips before I could stop them.
He shook his head with gentle firmness. "Don't act as if this was your mistake."
I gazed at his lips, still swollen from our kiss, full and red with corners that curved in that perpetual hint of a smile, a smile that the Three Isles' harsh way of life would inevitably wipe away, and sooner rather than later. The thought made my chest ache with fierce protectiveness.
"It is my weakness," I offered, willing to shoulder any blame if it meant protecting him from regret.
"To love cannot be a weakness, if one knows how to do it," he replied, his voice soft but certain.
I trembled with yearning so intense it felt like fever in my veins. I wanted his lips on mine again, wanted to lose myself in the warmth of his embrace, yet I could not bring myself to ask for what I had no right to claim.
I didn't need to. Serin's hands found my shoulders, warm and sure, and he didn't even glance around to see if we remained alone. He leaned closeuntil our lips were almost touching, his breath feathering across my skin like silk.
"Kiss me again," he whispered against my mouth. "And don't stop."
I kissed him with all the desperate hunger that eight years of silence had built within me. It was just as urgent and passionate as the first, maybe more so now that the dam had broken. I let the chains of duty fall away and kissed him exactly as I would have if we were two young nobles living freely on Eletheria, unburdened by crown or station.
Layer by layer, shame melted away like snow before flame. When Serin's fingers found the buckles of my belt and leather jerkin, I didn't stop him. Instead, I dared to pull at the fold of hisseret, baring the golden expanse of his shoulder and chest to moonlight that made his skin glow like burnished bronze.
Serin's hands worked with eager haste, tugging my coarse shirt up over my muscled torso and pulling it free. The garment fell forgotten to the grass as he pressed closer, our bare chests meeting in a blazing exchange of heat that made me gasp against his lips.
We continued kissing with growing fervor, bodies grinding together in ancient rhythm, hands roaming and claiming, sighs and soft moans escaping between fevered caresses. The bench became too small to contain us, and when Serinleaned forward with particular urgency, I found myself lying back on the warm grass with him above me, golden hair falling around us like a curtain.
