That was when I heard it.
The singing.
Out here—beneath the stars, surrounded by nothing but air and space—it was louder. Clearer. As though the sky itself had leaned down to hum against my bones.
I didn’t hesitate this time. I sang to it.
Softly. Gently. A melody I hadn’t sung in so long.
One of my favourites, the one Navaire used to hum under his breath during court dances, when he’d spin me too quickly just to make me laugh. The one we danced to at our wedding, the two of us in the candlelit garden behind the palace. Our hands clasped, our feet moving in time to a single Vihuela played by a friend too dear to refuse. No pomp. No spectacle. Just us, and the music, and a promise sealed in joy.
The memory washed over me as I closed my eyes, and for a moment… I was there again. His hands at my waist, his smile, his touch light but sure as he turned me in time with the rhythm. The scent of night-blooming flowers in the air. Laughter in my throat.
And the shadows, they didn’t intrude.
They listened.
Echoed the tune back to me, note for note, until it wrapped around me. A familiar embrace. A silent chorus humming along with a truth they couldn’t possibly understand and yet somehow did.
But slowly, the melody began to change.
Woven with threads I couldn’t name, with echoes of an older magic. The cadence lifted into a new shape—achingly beautiful—like the song I’d sung had taken root in them, and this was their gift back to me. A harmony born of shadows and starlight. A tribute to memory. And mourning. And magic.
I could hear the words woven within the notes.
You don’t have to let go. You just have to let it live beside you.
I opened my eyes, the stars above blurred by tears I hadn’t realised had gathered. I held them there, caught on the edge of the impossible and the sacred. Because somewhere in the weave of that new melody, in the way the shadows shaped the song into something not mine, yet undeniably meant for me.
I understood.
Maybe the others had been right.
Maybe I didn’t have to keep carrying grief like a stone in my chest. I didn’t have to fold myself around the ache. It would always be there. Navaire’s laughter, his warmth, the weight of everything we’d shared.
Nothing could take that from me. Nothing would.
The thought didn’t come with clarity or peace. It didn’t come with lightness. It came with pain, raw and tender, but not unbearable. Not anymore. Because I didn’t have to erase what came before. I could make space for something new.
I stayed there longer than I should have, letting the song fade into the night air until only the echo of it remained, a ghost of sound, a tremor in my chest. The shadows had gone quiet again, but not in the way they had before. This wasn’t silence. It was... rest. Like they’d said what they needed to say and were content to wait.
I wiped at my eyes with the heel of my hand, half-laughing at myself. Crying on balconies. Very elegant. Very composed.
“You know,” a voice drawled from behind me, low and edged with something I couldn’t quite name. “Most people use balconies for brooding in silence. You’re out here serenading the stars.”
I didn’t jump. Didn’t spin around. I’d felt him before I heard him—the shift in the air, the way the shadows seemed to pull tighter around themselves, like they were making room.
Varyth.
I turned slowly, finding him leaning against the archway that led back into the castle, arms crossed, his expression unreadable in the dim light.
“I didn’t know I had an audience.”
“You didn’t.” He pushed off the stone and moved closer, his steps soundless. “I wasn’t planning to intrude. But then you started singing, and...” He trailed off, his gaze flicking past me to the stars. “I couldn’tnotlisten.”
Heat crept up my neck. “I didn’t mean to?—”
“Don’t.” His voice was firm, but not unkind. “Don’t apologise for that. It was...” He hesitated, something vulnerable flickering across his face.
