But whatwasI doing here? I didn’t know. All I knew was that I didn’t want to be away from him.
Maybe I wanted to climb back up with him and stand at his side. Maybe I wanted to bear witness to his storm when it struck the rioters.
Maybe I just needed to see that what had happened between us, in Stenhalla and in Drachenfels Keep, had been real.
“I will stand with you,” I said, firm and clear so he would have no room to refuse. “And do not dare tell me to hide. I want to be here when you fight them.”
He frowned. “Why?”
Yes, Evie. Why?
Because the answer lived beneath my skin, hot and restless, clawing upward ever since the mountain. Because something in me had shifted the moment I’d watched him walk through storm and ruin without flinching. Because the power inside him had stopped frightening me and started calling to me instead.
But it was more than that.
I knew why.
I didn’t want to be alone with the past anymore.
His power drowned the noise. His presence calmed the echoes. His storm was the only thing stronger than my fear.
I wanted that again.
Not his protection.
Not his pity.
I wanted the truth of him. The raw, terrible force that everyone else feared, and I somehow understood.
I drew a breath, steadying the quiver in my voice.
Because I cannot hide while you fight.
Because I would rather face lightning beside you than shadows without you.
And because, gods forgive me… I am not afraid of your storm.
Those were the words that trembled in my chest.
But what I said was only this, quiet and bare, “Because I don’t want to face this alone.”
He stepped toward me, drawing closer, towering over me. “So you are willing to stand in the eye of the storm just for some company?” His tone held a quiet condescension that pinched at my heart.
“It is where it is safest, isn’t it, the eye of the storm?” I whispered, meeting his beautiful blue eyes.
“Why aren’t you running?” he growled, so close his voice made my bones vibrate. “Why do you still look at me like that?” He'd asked this before.
“Do you hate it?”
“No.”
“Do you hate what happened between us? Do you hate what I saw in Drachenfels? Do you hate it as much as what you did?” I knew he didn’t. I only wanted to wrench the truth out of him. I wanted him to face it as I had.
That the past did not define us. That the choices we made did not bind who we weretoday.
That if he accepted it as I had, something else might take root in the hollow it left.
Love, perhaps. Or was I being foolish?
