It's the heart of Valas' grief—the place where Daryn spent his final months writing letters, updating his will, trying to prepare for a future he wouldn't see. The place where he died, and I know it's the hardest to face. Walking in there makes all three of us tense, but it needs to be done.
We start by sorting papers. Legal documents get organized into proper files, personal letters are read and carefully preserved, scattered notes about Amisra's preferences and important dates are compiled into a journal we can reference. Valas handles most of this, his healer's precision making quick work of the chaos.
"Listen to this." He holds up a scrap of parchment, voice thick with suppressed emotion. "Amisra doesn't like carrots but will eat them if you tell her they're magic vegetables that give her strength."
I laugh despite the tears threatening. "That's absolutely true. I discovered that by accident last month."
"He documented everything." Valas shuffles through more papers. "Every little detail he thought we'd need to know. Herfavorite stories, which blanket she sleeps with, how she likes her tea prepared. Gods, he was so thorough."
We read them together—dozens of notes covering every aspect of Amisra's care and personality. It's like having Daryn there with us, offering guidance from beyond death, making sure his daughter would be loved and understood even without him.
Once the papers are sorted, we repaint the walls from their dark, somber blue to a warm cream. We open the curtains, rearrange the furniture so it feels less like a sickroom and more like an actual study. Valas claims the space as his own workspace for healing research, filling the shelves with his scrolls and books, but we leave Daryn's favorite chair in the corner and keep several of his journals displayed prominently.
"This feels right," I say on the afternoon we finish, surveying the transformed space. "Like honoring him without being trapped by the grief."
"Yeah." Valas comes to stand behind me, arms wrapping around my waist. "Like we can remember him and still move forward."
Amisra approves of all the changes. She spends her evenings in her new room with obvious delight, sleeps better than she has in weeks, and starts actually using the sitting room again instead of avoiding it. The house feels lighter somehow—still touched by loss but no longer suffocated by it.
Two weeks after we started the project, I find myself in the kitchen preparing dinner while Valas reads to Amisra in the sitting room. His voice carries through the house, dramatic and engaging as he performs all the different character voices. Amisra's giggles punctuate the narrative.
This is what home sounds like, I realize. Not silence and fear and careful distance. But laughter and stories and people who love each other filling the space with warmth.
I lean against the counter, listening to them, and let myself feel it fully—the gratitude, the affection, the strange and wonderful reality that this is my life now. That I chose this and was chosen in return.
The house feels alive again.
21
VALAS
The walk home from my practice carries a lightness I haven't felt in months—maybe years. My feet know the route by muscle memory alone, which leaves my mind free to wander through the past two months like thumbing through pages of a book I can't quite believe I'm living.
Two months since Keira told me she loved me. Two months of building something real from the wreckage of grief. It's not perfect—we still have hard days, moments when Daryn's absence hits like a physical blow—but we're healing. Together.
The late afternoon sun warms my face as I turn onto our street.Our street.When did I start thinking of it that way? When did Daryn's house becomeours?
Probably around the same time I stopped keeping half my belongings at my own place and committed fully to this strange, beautiful life we're constructing. The house feels different now—lighter, warmer, filled with sounds I never thought I'd associate with home. Amisra's laughter echoing through the halls. Keira humming while she works in the garden. The three of us together in the sitting room after dinner, Ami sprawled acrossboth our laps while I read increasingly ridiculous stories that make her giggle until her stomach hurts.
I love them both with an intensity that still catches me off-guard sometimes. Love wasn't supposed to feel like this—this easy, this natural, like breathing or magic flowing through my veins. But here we are.
Amisra's doing better. So much better than those first terrible weeks. She still has moments—times when she withdraws into herself or cries for her Papa—but they're becoming less frequent. Yesterday she played a prank on me involving strategically placed buckets and water, cackling with delight when I walked right into her trap. The mischief is coming back, that spark that makes her uniquely herself rather than a grief-hollowed shell.
We've established rituals. Breakfast together every morning without fail, all three of us crowded around the kitchen table while Ami tells us about her dreams and Keira steals pieces of fruit from my plate even though she has her own. Evenings outside when the weather permits, lying in the grass while I point out constellations and make up increasingly absurd stories about how they got their names.
"That one's called the Confused Merchant," I told them last week, gesturing at a random cluster of stars. "Named after a k'sheng who got so lost on a trading expedition he accidentally ended up in three different cities before realizing none of them were his destination."
Amisra had dissolved into giggles. "That's not real!"
"Absolutely true. Documented historical fact."
"Uncle Val's making it up," she'd informed Keira with the confidence of someone who's learned to recognize my nonsense.
"I would never." I'd pressed a hand to my chest in mock offense. "I'm a healer. We're very serious people who never lie about astronomy."
Keira had just smiled that secret smile that makes my heart do complicated things and threaded her fingers through mine where we lay side by side in the grass.
These are the moments I collect now. Small, perfect instances that add up to something that looks suspiciously like happiness.
