"I still just want to know you," I finish quietly. "That's all I've ever wanted. And that's all I'll ever ask for. Your choice. Your decision. Not because you're obligated or owned or haveno other option, but because you actually want to choose this. Choose me."
The silence that follows feels eternal. I watch her process the words, watch emotions flicker across her face too quickly for me to name them all. Fear and longing and uncertainty and something else that makes my pulse stutter.
But I don't push. Don't demand an answer or crowd her space or use any of the power the law has granted me.
I just stand there and wait for her to decide what she wants to do with what I've offered.
Finally, she nods. Just once. A small dip of her chin that could mean anything or nothing, but feels like everything.
It's enough.
It has to be enough.
I turn before I can do something stupid like close the distance between us and kiss her the way I've been dreaming about for days. Before I can beg her to understand that losing Daryn has made me realize exactly how much I can't bear to lose her too.
"We leave tomorrow morning," I say over my shoulder as I head for the door. "Pack light. It's a small cabin and we won't need much."
I make it to the doorway before I pause, my hand on the frame, my back still to her.
"Thank you for coming with us, starlight." My voice comes out rougher than intended, threaded with emotions I'm not quite ready to name even to myself. "It means more than you know."
Then I leave before I can say anything else. Before I can turn around and see her expression and crack completely under the weight of everything I'm feeling.
I walk down the hallway with my hands shaking and my chest so tight it's hard to breathe, and I'm almost certain—gods help me, I'm almost certain I love her.
And I'm absolutely certain I'll do anything to keep her from walking away.
18
KEIRA
Iwatch the landscape change through the carriage window—city streets giving way to farmland, farmland dissolving into wild foothills dotted with scrub brush and weathered stone. The sky overhead has turned the color of old bruises, heavy clouds pressing down like they're trying to suffocate the earth below.
Amisra sits between Valas and me, her small body curled against his side, one hand gripping his sleeve while the other clutches the stuffed lunox he bought for her yesterday. She hasn't let go of either since we left the house.
I tell myself I agreed to this for her. Because she needs stability and comfort and familiar faces around her while she processes grief too big for a four-year-old to carry. Because watching her lose the light in those pale lavender eyes has been breaking my heart piece by piece for days now.
But that's not the whole truth.
The whole truth is sitting across from me in elegant dark clothing that makes his slate-gray skin look like stormlight on steel, his crystalline moon-violet eyes tracking the passing scenery with an expression somewhere between exhaustion and carefully controlled grief. Valas looks like he hasn't sleptproperly in a week. Like he's holding himself together through sheer stubborn will and the determination not to fall apart in front of the child depending on him.
I want to comfort him. Want to reach across the small space between us and take his hand, smooth the tension from his shoulders, tell him it's okay to break sometimes because strength isn't the same as never showing cracks.
I want him.
Gods help me, I still want him so desperately it makes my chest ache with it. Wanting his hands on my skin, his mouth against mine, his body moving over me the way it did that afternoon in his room when I finally stopped running and let myself have something I'd been craving for months.
But more than that—more terrifying than physical desire—I want his presence. His terrible jokes and his careful consideration and the way he looks at me like I'm something precious instead of property. The way he's never once demanded anything from me even though the law says he could. Even though he owns me on paper and has every right to enforce that ownership if he chose.
He hasn't chosen. He's given me space and time and the freedom to decide what I want without pressure or expectation, and that terrifies me more than any claim of ownership ever could.
Because it means the choice is entirely mine.
My head has been at war with my heart since the moment that k'sheng read Daryn's will and I learned the truth. Every logical thought screaming that this is exactly what I feared, that I've become property traded between elves like livestock, that trusting Valas means giving him power to destroy me if he ever decides to use it.
But my heart—my stupid, stubborn heart—keeps reminding me that Valas had opportunities before. Daryn could have soldmy contract to him months ago if that was the arrangement they wanted. Could have pushed me into Valas's bed, made it a condition of my employment, turned me into a gift wrapped up with a bow.
They never did.
