"Leora," I start, but my voice fails. I clear my throat. "I have purchased something. A property."
Her eyes widen. "A house?"
"Near the cliffs. It has a garden. And windows that face the sea."
"Imas..." She smiles, a soft, wondrous thing. "It sounds beautiful."
"It is empty," I say. "It is just stone and wood. It needs..." I squeeze her hands. "It needs a mistress."
I stand up, pulling her with me. The ring box burns against my chest, a secret weight. I cannot do it here, in this rented room that smells of other people's lives. I need to do this in a place that matters.
"Come with me," I say.
"Now? It's nearly dark."
"The dark does not frighten us," I remind her.
She laughs, a sound that chases the last of the shadows from the corners of my mind. "No. I suppose it doesn't."
She grabs her cloak. I lead her out of the inn, through the cooling streets of Ter.
We walk past the market, past the guildhouse, toward the edge of the city where the lights fade and the wilder magic of the land takes over.
"Where are we going?" she asks, though she follows me without hesitation.
I look ahead, to where the moonlight reflects off a vast, glassy surface nestled between the hills.
"To the lake," I say, my voice tight with the magnitude of what I am about to do. "To the Waters of Fate."
I feel her fingers tighten around mine. She knows the legends. She knows that lovers go there to tie their destinies together.
We walk into the gathering night, toward the water that will either drown me or baptize me.
25
LEORA
The Waters of Fate are not dark. They are a mirror of obsidian glass, reflecting the canopy of stars that stretches over Kaynvu like a spill of diamond dust. The air here is soft, lacking the sharp, biting edge of Lliandor’s eternal gloom. It smells of night-blooming jasmine and the clean, mineral scent of the lake .
I walk beside Imas. Our footsteps are quiet on the pebble-strewn shore. He is silent, but it is not the pressurized silence of a man holding back a scream. It is a contemplative quiet, a man listening to the world around him without the filter of chaos.
He stops near a cluster of willow trees whose branches dip into the water. The moonlight paints his charcoal skin in shades of silver and ash. He looks at the lake, his violet eyes tracking the gentle ripple of the surface.
"Legend says this water reveals your destiny," he says softly. "That if you drink it, the Fates bind you to your purpose".
"Do you believe that?" I ask.
He turns to me. The wind catches his loose hair, blowing the platinum strands across his face. He brushes them back with a hand that is calloused now, marked by honest labor.
"I believe we make our own fate," he says. "But I believe some things are inevitable."
He reaches into his tunic and pulls out a small velvet box.
My breath hitches. The sound of the crickets seems to fade, the world narrowing down to the man standing before me and the small, dark object in his hand.
He does not open it immediately. He looks at me, his gaze intense, searching my face as if looking for a crack in the foundation.
"I am not a Lord anymore, Leora," he says. His voice is rough with an emotion I have only ever heard him suppress. "I have no title. I have no magic. I cannot offer you protection from gods or kings. I can only offer you... this."
