Amara.
She moves like she belongs to the night. Spinning through the crowd—cheeks flushed, eyes alight. In that dress, the bonfire light in her eyes—she’s freedom. Wild and clever and strong. She’s made of flame and wind—untamed and uncatchable.
She came looking for me the other night—when she thought bloody Lady Evelyne was in my quarters.
I see how she looks at me. I know I just have to tell her that I feel—
No.
No!
By all the gods—I have to get this under control.
She’s dancing with Kieran now. Because I told her no. I almost said yes. I was so close.
But I can’t.
Valen steps up beside me like he’s been waiting in the shadows all along.
He doesn’t speak at first. Just watches the crowd—the laughter, the firelight, the ease with which people lean into each other.
His hands are clasped behind his back, the way they always are when he’s letting me stew in a silence I never asked for.
Then, quietly—tooquietly—he says, “You know, you can just tell her.”
Just that. Nothing else. Only the truth I keep running from—dropped like a stone at my feet.
I don’t answer. Not right away. Because it’s not worth denying it—not tohim.
It’s written all over me.
Every glance. Every time I find her in a crowd without meaning to. Every time I saynoto her.
And ache afterward.
“It’s not that simple,” I say instead, jaw tight.
Valen hums—noncommittal, amused. “It never is. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”
I exhale through my nose, dragging my eyes from the firelight—from the shape of her spinning in someone else’s arms.
Valen stands nearly as tall as me. Silver-blue eyes, steady and sharp as ever. He’s been by my side for eleven years—mentor, advisor, soldier.
And, somehow, friend.
“I can’t risk the realm,” I say.
The words come out hard. Final. But Valen doesn’t blink. Doesn’t budge.
“What if it helps the realm?” he counters, voice quiet. “What if it’s not about the realm at all?”
I study him carefully.
There’s no way he could know.
Gods, he can’t.
The real reason I can’t be with her—the truth I’ve buried so deep it barely feels real anymore.
