“Eimarille is mine,” Innes said after a moment, the noise of the pub intruding between them.
“I let you take her out of Amari. Of course she is yours.”
They’d birthed that bloodline long ago, in the space between stars, and had equal claim to the children that came after. They’d shared so much and lost so much and become so much more than the memory of what they once were.
But despite all that, she would always love him, in some way.
Aaralyn leaned across the table, reaching out to curl her fingers around the silk cravat he wore. Innes followed the pull of her hand willingly, let her press her mouth against his. Like all the times before, he was familiar to her.
“Did you think I was not prepared to play this game of yours?” Aaralyn whispered against his lips, tongue snaking out to trace the edges of his teeth.
“Our children hunger after progress. They have a right to it.”
“And they are enslaved when they cannot pay the cost of dreams.” She pulled back far enough to look him in the eye. “If you go down this road, there will be war.”
Innes pressed his thumb to her full bottom lip; she could feel the crescent moon marks his fingernails cut into her jaw. “Aaralyn, love of my never-ending life. What makes you think there isn’t war already?”
Innes pried her fingers off him with a gentle hand, and she let him. He pressed a kiss to the back of her knuckles before rising to his feet. They stared at each other through a space that echoed with history before he turned his back on her and walked away.
Aaralyn watched Innes go but did not follow after him.
The North Star never had.
