I would hold it anyway.
78
Ashterion sat in the half-light of his chambers. Not the one he had shared with Xyliria.
His.
The one he had abandoned centuries ago, swallowed by the necessity of survival, by the weight of her control.
Now, it was his again.
All of it was.
And he had no fucking clue what to do with that.
His fingers traced the ornate carvings on the chair’s armrests, the ones he’d designed himself in another lifetime. Shadows drifted languidly around him, no longer restless. They moved with a quiet contentment he hadn’t felt from them in centuries.
The silence felt wrong. Not because he missed her, gods, no.
But because he hadn’t planned for this.
Hadn’t dared to fucking hope.
He was free.
And now that he could finally breathe without her chains around his throat, he found he had no fucking idea what to do with that.
What did one do with eternity when they’d already surrendered it?
His fingers curled into a fist against the armrest of his chair, knuckles white.
Ashterion blew out a long exhale, leaning back in the chair that somehow fit the contours of his body perfectly even after all these centuries. The room around him was exactly as he’d left it—books stacked on his desk, half-finished sketches of architectural designs pinned to the walls, a glass of wine forever abandoned, now nothing but crystallised residue at the bottom.
It was a mausoleum. A fucking shrine to someone he didn’t recognise anymore.
The fire crackled in the hearth, throwing flickering shadows against the stone walls. Outside, the night stretched deep and endless, quiet in a way that should have been peaceful.
But peace wasn’t what he wanted. Not really. Because he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Isara had killed Xyliria.
He should have been relieved. Should have been satisfied. He was.
He told himself that was all it was, gratitude. That her name curled through his thoughts like smoke because she’d done what he never could. Not because of the way she looked at him. Or the way she hadn’t flinched from him even when she should have.
And now she was back in Varyth’s court.
Varyth, who would…
No.
Ashterion cut off the thought before it could form. It had been centuries.
Centuries since there was anything close to a truce between their courts.
Perhaps he had changed.
If Ashterion wasn’t the same male anymore, perhaps Varyth wasn’t either.
