“I would kneel the same before you again,” Alarik interrupted gently. “Even now, if only to ease your sorrows.”
He stepped back just slightly, just enough to offer her the choice to close the distance.
“I meant what I’ve said. You are not a pawn in some war between me and Kael. You are the war’s undoing. A new war, to be unleashed on the cruel gods who cursed our continent.”
Maris turned away again, tears glinting at the corners of her eyes. “You don’t understand, if I admit that, if I let myself feel whatever this is —what does that make me?”
He didn’t hesitate.
“Honest.”
A long silence stretched between them, weighted with memory and fire.
Finally, she whispered, “I don’t want to be anyone’s ruin.”
“You aren't,” Alarik said. “You’re a salvation.”
And with that, he left her.
Because he knew… if he stayed a moment longer, he would have kissed her and whispered promises to her under the stars.
And he wasn’t sure she would’ve stopped him.
Chapter fifty
A Truth
-Maris-
The cabin was quiet save for the creak of the ship’s hull and the soft wash of waves beyond the porthole. The lantern on the wall flickered low, casting honey-gold light over the bed where Maris lay curled on her side, sleepless.
Alarik’s words still echoed in her skull like a spell she hadn’t asked for:
You’ve become something the rest of us can only chase… but that doesn’t mean you have to carry it alone.
I would kneel before you again. Even now, if only to ease your sorrows.
She’d barely managed to respond. Her throat had gone tight, her breath unsteady. It wasn’t just the sincerity in his voice or the fact that she believed every word.
It was the weight of knowing she’d seen him like that before.
In dreams.
Sultry, fevered, a dream that once seemed like a fantasy stitched from longing and wine. Dreams where Kael had held her in a stream and worshipped her like something holy only for her to look up and find Alarik’s violet-blue eyes gazing down at her instead. Dreams she’d dismissed, compartmentalized, buried under guilt and denial.
But now… now it all made sense.
He had been in her head.
She had called him there to fill a need that Kael alone could not staunch.
Not an illusion. Not a fantasy. A desperate request.
Her cheeks burned. The shame hit low and deep.
He had known. All along.
He had played along.
