Her heart beat hard.
He dropped his hand, stepped back as if giving her space again was the only apology left in his bones. “You are the dream I was too foolish to believe in.”
She took in the sight of him and for the first time she didn’t see the king who had dragged her from ballrooms in jealousy or tried to cage her under the guise of protection.
She saw him.
The one who kissed her with trembling hands in a moonlit corridor. Who had watched her like she was the first star to ever rise. The one who had written her name into the marrow of his soul before he even realized he’d fallen. Hers.
Her voice shook. “Why do you speak so freely now?”
“Because I don’t know how much time we have left,” he whispered. “And I need you to know, whatever happens I love you.” He swallowed. “I will never stop standing at your side.”
His unspoken meaning lying between them.
Tears pricked her eyes.
She kissed him, quickly, not with a promise of anything, but a thank you.
She moved back grasping his hand, leaning into his shoulder.
The silence between her and Kael wasn’t heavy anymore. It was something gentler. His fingers brushed hers along the balcony railing, hesitant, reverent. Like he didn’t expect this, her. Not after everything. And maybe, in some quiet corner of her heart, she hadn’t expected it either.
But warmth bloomed between them, and when he looked at her like that — a sunrise he never believed he’d see again. Maris nearly forgot the weight of the world pressing in. She wondered what it would have been like to still be at his side in Nythra.
A cough sounded behind them, breaking the thought.
Not rude. Not impatient.
Just timed.
She turned, already knowing who it would be.
Alarik stood just past the archway, arms crossed lightly over his chest, a quiet smile pulling at his mouth. Not mocking. Not possessive. Just… waiting.
“It’s my turn,” he said, voice pitched low so only she and Kael could hear.
Kael’s jaw tightened for the briefest moment, but he gave a short nod.
Maris looked between them. The space between. The strange, awful, beautiful quiet of this.
She stepped back from the railing, her fingers slipping from Kael’s. He didn’t grip tighter. Didn’t beg.
He simply let go.
Alarik didn’t reach for her hand. He only turned and began walking, trusting she’d follow.
They walked side by side through the candlelit halls of the castle, guards offering shallow bows, servants retreating into corners. It wasn’t until they reached the quietest wing, her private chambers, that Alarik finally spoke again.
“You seemed… lighter with him.”
Maris blinked. “Are you jealous?”
“I’m grateful,” he said softly. “He’s seen you at your worst. And you at his. And he still looks at you like you’re his beginning.”
She didn’t know how to answer that. So she said nothing.
“But I…” Alarik slowed to a stop outside her door. “I saw you before either of us knew what you were. And I still see you now.”
