His eyes lingered on her profile, the way the moonlight traced her cheek. “Always,” he murmured.
“You love this, don’t you?” she dropped her gaze from the sky to his face. “Learning. Understanding. You don’t just speak about it—you feel it.”
Alaric’s mouth curved before he could stop it. “I do,” he admitted. “There’s so much in this world we don’t know, so many questions without answers. How could I not want to chase them?”
She glanced at him sidelong, eyes sharp but softer than he’d ever seen them. “For all the talking you do, I think you might make a better scholar than a prince.”
He barked a laugh, quick and startled. “Perhaps in another life.”
“And in this one?”
“In this one, I’ll have to settle for being an emperor who asks too many questions.”
He tried to make it sound light, but the words sat heavy.Emperor. The reminder curdled the air between them, left the pause stretching longer than he wanted.
It built until it cracked something in him. “I’m sorry,” he said, voice low. “For keeping a secret while asking you to bare your own. Maybe… maybe if I’d told you sooner, things would be different.”
She shook her head and they resumed their walk.
“I understand… in a way,” she murmured. “No one in this kingdom would have listened to you. Even if you screamed it from the chapel steps. That’s what we’re built on, Alaric. Pragmatism. For the same reason it took me this long to trust you.”
Her fingers curled against her robe, a tiny gesture, but he caught it.
Then, quietly, she added, “You knew the Marshal wasn’t at fault. And I didn’t listen.”
“Ravik is not without guilt either,” he shook his head. “He made mistakes—not telling the Crown was one of them. Manipulating events, using you to capture heretics—that was another. But he is not the man behind the massacre. I don’t think so.”
“I don’t know who it could be,” she admitted quietly. “Everyone has something to gain, even the ones who seem innocent. Sometimes I think… it might even be me.”
She looked down. “Not on purpose. But part of me wonders if I’ve helped, somehow—without knowing.”
His brow furrowed.
He had wanted this. Wanted her to see that the polished truth of her kingdom was nothing more than a lie painted over rot. And he’d gotten it. But instead of triumph, all he felt was thehollow sting of it. He wasn’t glad she’d broken free—he was sorry she’d had to break at all. Angry she’d been handed her freedom in shards sharp enough to cut.
She looked at him, and her voice came softer than he expected, softer than he was prepared for.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Alaric turned his head, brows lifting. “For what?”
She drew a long breath, steadying herself. “For being on my side anyway. And for the book,” her thumb brushed the edge of her sleeve, slow and deliberate. “I hadn’t had the opportunity to thank you properly until now. Gifts aren’t exactly… honored in the same way here, but I still wanted you to know that I appreciate it.”
His heart did something silly. “Do you like it?”
“I do.”
Warmth caught in his chest, quick and unguarded. “It’s a popular book in Varantia. Most children grow up with those stories at bedtime.” He paused, studying her carefully. “I know your mother was from there. Not Varantia itself, but Lysitha still shares the same tales. I thought she might have told you some of them.”
Her steps slowed. She turned to him fully.
“She did read them to me,” she admitted, voice low. “I lied to you on our first walk, I know Lysithan myths well.” A breath slipped out of her, bittersweet, and he felt the echo of it in his own chest. “You helped me to remember something I didn’t even know I had lost.”
Alaric’s throat tightened. “Then I suppose it was the right gift.”
She swallowed, chin tilting up as though she could press back whatever had risen in her chest. “And I must admit you’re a good dancer.”
The laugh broke out of him before he could contain it. “It was harder than memorizing the constitution of my country—and that’s a thousand pages long.”
