His heartbeat thudded once beneath my palm—hard enough I felt it.
We froze. Both of us.
Suspended in something warm and stupid and wildly dangerous.
“…Steady,” he said, though it didn’t sound like he believed it.
I swallowed. “Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“You’re absolutely laughing.”
“I’m—” His voice cracked. He cleared it. “I’m trying very hard not to.”
He released me—slowly, like prying himself away. The deck swayed harder the moment he let go.
I lurched.
He moved slightly to catch me—
—but I raised a hand before he could. “No,” I said firmly. “I’ve got it.”
He froze. Hands half raised, jaw tight, eyes burning with something too intense for the moment.
“Alright,” he said quietly. “Show me.”
Challenge accepted.
I took one step. The world rolled. I adjusted.
Then another step. And another.
Alaric followed silently, his steps measured, close enough to catch me if I went down—but not touching.
Watching. Hunting. Holding back.
It made the air feel heated, electrified.
I reached the desk—barely—and placed one hand on its edge like it was the most dignified, intentional decision of my life.
“See?” I said. “Perfectly steady.”
He huffed a laugh through his nose—quiet, unwilling, almost fond. He looked at my mouth.
Then at my eyes. Then he stepped back. “Sit,” he said.
I did. More like melted into the chair.
The maps and journals were already scattered across the desk, parchment stained with salt from the trench and warped fromthe depths. Alaric had been reviewing them when I entered, but now they sat between us like open secrets. I reached out and let my fingers drift over the pages, tracing faded ink and curling symbols like I might summon meaning through touch alone. One map had burnished edges and sea-worn creases that sparked something strange—recognition without memory.
On another page, a drawing caught my eye— a crescent surrounded by swirling lines. I leaned closer. It was eerily similar to the one I had seen carved into the walls of the Sanctuary of Milos after the Celestial Choir—when everything had shifted. The memory shivered through me, cold and electric.
I stared at it for a long moment, heart thudding, my mark burning faintly. Slowly, the pieces began to shift into place—not gemstones. Quartz. The same shimmer, the same fractured glow as the two fragments we had found. It wasn’t just similar. It was the same. This was part of it.
I blinked, pulse stuttering as the weight of it hit me. This wasn’t a coincidence—it was a connection. The fragment we’d found. The piece Alaric carried. This drawing. It all pointed to something older, greater.
The realization settled slowly: the fragments weren’t relics on their own. They were pieces of one object. One artifact.
