He closes his eyes. When he opens them, they’re wet. “I could have fought for her. Could have demanded Caspian allow surface healers to come. Could have?—”
“Could have become a traitor years earlier.” The words are harsh, but necessary. “Could have been outcast. Could have watched her die anyway, just with a different kind of guilt.” I lean forward until he has to look at me. “Or you could stop blaming yourself for a system that was broken long before your sister got sick.”
A single tear tracks down his cheek, and without thinking, I reach out—bound hands and all—and brush it away. My fingers come away damp, and lightning sparks where water touched my skin. This time, neither of us flinches.
“She would have liked you,” he says, his voice rough with emotion. “Mira. She would have loved that a Sky-dweller came in peace. Would have asked you a thousand questions about flying.”
“Then tell me about her,” I say. “Not how she died. How she lived.”
And he does. Slowly at first, then faster, like a dam breaking. Stories about a girl who laughed at everything, who collected surface debris like treasure, who once tried to ride a current all the way to the sea just to see if she could. A sister who saw wonder where everyone else saw danger. Who dreamed of bridges instead of walls.
I listen, and the bond carries his grief to me—still sharp, still raw, but edged with something that might be healing. AndI realize: this is what I came for. Not treaties or negotiations or political maneuvering.
Understanding. Connection. The fragile, precious act of seeing another person’s pain and saying: I see you. You’re not alone.
When he finally trails off, the cavern is quiet except for the distant sound of water. He looks exhausted but lighter somehow. Like talking about Mira was both painful and necessary.
“Thank you,” he says.
“For what?”
“For asking. For listening.” He meets my eyes. “For not being what I expected.”
“You’re not what I expected either.”
The bond hums between us, satisfied. Content. Like it knew all along that this was where we’d end up—not fighting each other, but sitting in the dark, sharing stories and grief and something that feels dangerously like trust.
Torin looks at me for a long moment. Then he reaches out and touches my cheek—just for a second, barely a brush of webbed fingers against my skin—and pulls away.
“We should rest,” he says, his voice carefully neutral. “We have a long journey ahead.”
“Yeah.” My cheek tingles where he touched me, electricity and water leaving their mark. “We should.”
But neither of us moves. We sit there in the bioluminescent glow, the bond pulsing between us like a second heartbeat, and I think: I came here to prove I was more than Kael’s sister. More than the safe diplomat. More than the careful, controlled person everyone expected me to be.
I didn’t expect to find someone who makes me want to be more than I ever imagined I could be.
Torin settles against the cavern wall, and I do the same. Close enough that the bond is satisfied. Far enough that we canboth pretend we’re not desperately aware of every breath, every heartbeat, every small movement that brings us infinitesimally closer.
The last thing I see before sleep takes me is him watching me in the moss-light. His expression is soft. Wondering. Like he’s trying to figure out the same puzzle I am.
How did we get here? And where do we go from here?
The bond has no answers. It just hums contentedly, wrapping around both of us like a promise neither of us is ready to make.
But we’re getting there. Despite everything. Despite ourselves.
We’re getting there.
7
TORIN
I’ve been so focused on the enemy in front of me that I forgot the one behind.
The realization hits me three hours into our march, when the water whispers a warning I should have heard miles ago. Vibrations. Rhythmic. Too precise to be natural. Too deliberate to be anything but pursuit.
My hand shoots up, stopping Zara mid-step. She freezes instantly—good instincts, for someone who can’t hear what the river is telling me. I press my palm against the damp tunnel wall, feeling the pulse of distant movement through stone and water.
