Varyth stared, his expression caught somewhere between awe and confusion. “They don’t usually do this.” His gaze dragged over where the fireflies had landed on me. “Fireflies don’t land on people. They keep their distance. Always just out of reach”
I grinned, giddy and reckless, as the fireflies danced around me in lazy spirals. “Maybe they made an exception.”
“Maybe,” he said quietly, “they know something the rest of us don’t.”
And as I stood there, bathed in golden light and laughter, surrounded by the hum of wings and the weight of a grief that no longer crushed me.
I thought maybe, just maybe, he was right.
The fireflies lingered for another heartbeat, their golden glow painting the darkness in soft strokes, before they began to drift away. One by one, they lifted from my skin like wishes released into the night, spiralling upward until they disappeared into the stars.
I watched them go, something warm and fragile settling in my chest.
When I finally looked back at Varyth, I found him staring at me with an intensity that stole the breath from my lungs.
His eyes were dark and burning, fixed on me like he was trying to memorise every detail. The curve of my face in the starlight, the way my hair had come loose from its pins, the flush I could feel creeping across my cheeks under the weight of that stare.
It was too much.
My heart kicked hard against my ribs, and I had to look away before I did something reckless.
“I should—” My voice came out rough, unsteady. I cleared my throat and tried again. “I should go. I’m supposed to meet Fenric. And Cindrissian. About... about Nyxaria.”
Varyth blinked, the intensity fracturing just enough for him to pull back. To remember where we were.
“Right,” he said. “The meeting.”
“Yes. The meeting.” I took a step back, then another, putting space between us before I lost my nerve entirely. “I’m already late. Fenric’s probably pacing a hole in his floor by now.”
“Isara.”
I stopped, my hand on the archway, but I didn’t turn around. Couldn’t. Not when his voice sounded like that—rough and wanting and threaded with something I wasn’t ready to name.
“Thank you,” I said. “For... for what you said. About love. About making room.”
“Anytime.”
I walked away, my heart pounding, my skin tingling where the fireflies had landed, the echo of Varyth’s gaze burning into my back like a brand.
And I knew—gods help me, Iknew—that I was in so much trouble.
34
Stairs curved gently as I climbed toward Fenric’s chambers, the soles of my boots quiet against polished stone. The corridor up here was darker than the rest of the castle, narrow windows cutting thin slashes of moonlight across the stone walls. Shadows pooled in every corner, humming, always humming.
I rounded the corner, and froze.
Because Fenric was there.
But he wasn’t alone.
His fingers were tangled in long blue hair that spilled like midnight water over shoulders I recognised.
Fenric looked like a man caught in a storm, and Lincatheronwas the storm—towering over him, devouring him like salvation and punishment all at once.
There was nothing careful in it. Nothing kind.
It was violence dressed as a kiss. A collision of hunger and fury and need.
