Back to him. The silver-stained sigil glowing faintly against her hand as it rested on the worn wood. She didn’t turn when he approached but she didn’t tense either.
“I come bearing apologies,” Alarik said softly, voice low with teasing warmth. “And a bruised ego.”
That earned him a sideways glance, her brow lifted just enough to invite more.
“I once told you,” he continued, stepping beside her, “that you nearly shattered. And then, you reminded me, quite dramatically glow-eyed and terrifying, that you don’t break.”
She huffed a breath that was almost a laugh. “It’s not my fault you made assumptions based on me being conscious and breathing.”
He smirked. “Assumptions were clearly my downfall.”
Maris turned her gaze forward again, into the wind. Her expression softened, but her voice dropped. “You’re not the only one who did.”
The moment shifted.
His amusement faded into something heavier. “I meant it, you know,” he said, quieter now. “I didn’t just kneel for show. You’ve become something the rest of us can only chase.”
She didn’t answer.
And so he added, voice gentler, more reverent, “But that doesn’t mean I think you need to carry it alone.”
She stared out at the sea. A sadness in her eyes.
Then said, too quietly, “I can’t feel him anymore.”
Alarik didn’t respond immediately.
The abrupt change in her mood from her time spent in solitude clicked into place. His heart ached for her, knowing the loss of a betrothal bond with the death of Elenwe. He stood only watching the horizon, the ghost of Nerium’s cliffs still days ahead on the horizon.
“It’s like… he was a kindling inside me,” she continued, voice trembling. “And now it's just dark.”
A pause.
“It was the crown. The Veil terror warned me. “Find your crown, lose your bonded.”
He turned to her slowly, heart aching, jaw tight. “And does that mean you would give it all back? To restore your tether to him.”
Maris finally looked up at him eyes rimmed with old sorrow and new strength. “No,” she whispered. “But it doesn’t mean I don’t miss what I had.”
He nodded. “Even if it was built on half-truths?”
A beat.
She didn’t answer. Not with words.
But her silence said enough.
He cursed himself for speaking so plainly during her pain.
He shifted slightly closer, his knuckles brushing the side of hers on the rail. “You think yourself cruel for what you feel now… for what stirs in your chest when I look at you like this, for the joy you feel at the prospect of freedom.”
She drew a breath as though to deny it, but the lie caught in her throat.
He leaned in, eyes searing her profile, voice rough. “I was in that dream, Maris. Before the goddess gave you your quest to find the crown. That wasn’t your imagination. You called for me.”
She stared at him, wide-eyed. Barely breathing.
“You knelt before me,” she said, voice strained. “You said I was burning, and I — I let you..”
