Memories pushes in, trying to dominate the moment. The pain. The ache. The sting of his rejection. Korr growls, soft, low, rumbling. He presses his hand against the small of my back and I feel him move a half-step closer.
I take a deep breath and hold it. The past is over. He made his choice and I’ve made mine. It shouldn’t hurt still, but saying that in no way makes it real. I open my eyes and Korr is the first thing I see.
Solid. There. Silently studying my face. A smile forms and I lightly place a hand on his chest before turning around to face my ex-husband.
“What is it Brad?” I ask.
My voice sounds weary even to me. Brad doesn’t miss it either. His eyes widen just a bit, the corners of his mouth turning down a little deeper. He blinks, darts a glance at Korr then back to me.
“I need to speak to you,” he says, not tentative or entitled, just… urgent. “Alone.”
I consider him for a long moment. Once, that request would have pulled me off balance. Made me feel responsible for his discomfort. His unfinished thoughts. His regrets. I recognize enough to see that it doesn’t now. I’m not the woman I was.
“No,” I say evenly. “You need to speakwith me. Not over me. Not past me. And not as if I owe you something.”
His mouth opens, then closes. He nods once, accepting the boundary even if it costs him.
“Fair,” he says.
Korr hasn’t moved. He stands close enough that I feel him when I shift my weight. A quiet certainty at my back that lets me keep my shoulders squared instead of folded inward.
“I waited,” my former husband says after a beat. “For years. I thought… if you were alive, you’d find me.”
I feel the old ache stir — faint now, like a scar tugged by stretching wrongly.
“I did find you,” I say. “Every time I wondered what was wrong with me. Every time I tried to make myself smaller so you wouldn’t leave. Every time I told myself not being able to have children meant I was broken.”
His breath stutters and he pales. There’s no anger in my voice or in my heart. There was, for so long, but no longer. I’m speaking truth and how that affects him isn’t my problem any longer.
“That’s not?—”
“It is,” I say, cutting him off gently but firmly. “You didn’t leave because of fate or circumstance. You left because you wanted a life that didn’t include disappointment. And I couldn’t give you the one thing you decided defined love.”
Silence falls hard between us. Behind him, the city murmurs. Survivors shifting. Zmaj wings adjusting. Life continuing without regard for our past. No concerns for the personal drama playing out like a performance.
“I was afraid,” he says finally. “I thought staying would destroy us both.”
“No,” I say. “Staying would have required you to see me as enough.”
He looks at the ground, then back at me. His eyes are wet, but there’s no performance in it. Just understanding, finally arrived too late to save anything but himself.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I nod once.
“I know.”
The words surprise us both. I don’t feel hollow saying them. I don’t feel relieved. I feel… finished.
His gaze flicks past me again, to Korr. To the way Korr hasn’t inserted himself into the conversation. Hasn’t spoken for me. Hasn’t tried to win.
“Is he—” he starts.
“Yes,” I say, before he can frame it as a question about ownership. “He is.”
Korr’s hand comes to rest at my lower back again. Anchoring. Not because I need it. Because he chooses it.
“I don’t belong to him,” I add, voice steady. “But I am with him. And I am not afraid of what that costs.”
