Then he leaned down and kissed her forehead.
She tilted her chin up, not much, but enough to sayyes, even if her mouth didn’t form the word. When he pulled back, her eyes stayed closed for a heartbeat longer than his.
He guided her toward the bed, slowly, giving her space to stop him if she wanted to. She didn’t. She sat carefully at the edge. After a pause, she drew her legs up and slipped beneath the covers. She lay on her back as if her body hadn’t quite caught up to the fact that she was here.
He moved slowly, crouching as if not to spook her, reaching for the blanket at the floor. “I will sleep down here,” he offered softly.
“No, stay here,” she said quickly. “I just… you are the heir to the throne; you should not sleep on the floor.”
He raised his brow, the corner of his mouth tilting. He turned to her, and her eyes were wide. Surprised, yes, but not afraid.
“Of course. We wouldn't want me catching a cold.”
She looked away, her voice was quiet. “No. We don’t.”
After a few heartbeats he approached slowly and sat at the other edge of the bed, turning his back to her. Something aboutlooking at her right now felt too intimate. The sheets rustled as she shifted behind him.
Evelyne shifted first, leaning toward him with quiet hesitation before settling beside him. Alaric lay back, letting her come to him, and when she finally rested against his chest, he wrapped an arm around her. She was tense for a moment, unsure, but he didn’t move—only breathed her in and pressed a lingering kiss to the crown of her head.
Her kiss came like a question: soft, barely there. Just the brush of her lips against his collarbone—testing.
Alaric froze from the sheer, breath-catching tenderness of it. His pulse stuttered somewhere stupidly close to his throat. Without thinking he pulled her tighter into his arms. He could feel the storm in her bones—the way her fingers clenched in the fabric of the sheet like she was afraid it would disappear.
But maybe this will work. Not because they were perfect.
But because they’d started with the truth.
Chapter 64
Thalen woke before the sun. The castle was still—a kind of hush he liked. He sat at his desk for a moment, letting the silence settle over him. He didn’t call for help. He knew where everything was and liked his things ordered. Then he reached for the small white flower he’d kept pressed between the pages of his map journal—a single forget-me-not he’d picked two weeks ago from the edge of the gardens and slipped it gently into the inner pocket of his coat.
His sister’s wedding had been… interesting. That was the word adults used when they didn’t want to say too much. There had been speeches, dancing, and a lot of nobles who looked at him like he was a particularly clever puppy. He didn’t mind. He’d spoken to more people in one night than he usually did in a week.
His mother had tried to talk to him about it two nights before the wedding.
Not directly, of course—she never asked things that way. She’d simply lingered by his desk, straightening papers that didn’t need straightening, mentioning in that careful tone of hers that his sister had been “preoccupied lately.” Had he noticed? Had he heard anything?
Thalen had pretended not to. He’d shrugged, said something about how brides were always nervous, and changed the subject to the night markets of Varantia. She’d smiled at that, but he’d seen the worry behind her eyes.
The truth was, he did know things.
He always did.
Secrets were like birds wanting to fly away, so if you weren’t careful, you could lose them entirely. He loved his mother, butshe wasn’t ready for the kinds of truths Evelyne had started chasing.
Evelyne was ready, though. Finally.
He’d seen it in her face these past weeks. And Alaric… well, Thalen suspected he’d like the treasures buried beneath the castle as much as he did. The prince had that same look in his eyes when maps were mentioned.
What made him smile, though, was Lady Vesena.
She had come to him with the idea—getting Alaric and Evelyne to work together. Thalen had listened. And then, proud as anything, he’d shared the location. A secret, even if small.
It felt good. Better than good, actually. Because Vesena hadn’t talked down to him or ruffled his hair or used that voice adults always used when they thought you didn’t understand. She’d spoken to him plainly. Just like Sir Cedric did. Like he mattered.
He smiled faintly to himself, adjusting the forget-me-not in his pocket.
He liked seeing them together—his sister and the prince. And yesterday, even with her hands trembling, Evelyne had smiled. Not the careful, court-trained one. The real one. The one he remembered from before.
