Trust.
She runs to me.
To me.
Not away.
Her hand presses to my chest, right where the fire rages hottest, and instead of recoiling—she grounds me.
“I’m fine,” she whispers. “I’m okay.”
The world stills.
My flames stutter.
The inferno falters.
The monster fractures.
She reaches for me.
Not the Lord. Not the weapon. Not the terror.
Me.
The fire collapses inward. Bone melts. Heat recedes. I drop to my knees before her, breath ragged, shame flooding in behind the fading fury.
“Mine,” I rasp, forehead pressed to her body as if anchoring myself there is the only thing keeping me from burning apart.
She strokes my hair.
We exchange more words.
She soothes me.
I breathe in her scent.
She does not flinch.
I think she makes a joke.
She does not recoil.
I respond, but my thoughts are everywhere.
She does not fear what I am.
And in that moment—kneeling, undone, clutching at a human woman who should never have matched my fire—I know.
This is no deception.
No borrowed bond.
No trick played on the Fates.
She is my true viyella. And I am her viyen.
The second I acknowledge it, its’ like the world holds its breath around us.
