Sylvie uncorked each vial on the silver tray, and Juliet named them as they spilled into the water:
“Laurel, for endurance.
Lavender, for calm.
Salt, for tears made strength.
Moonblossom” —her laugh softened, wistful— “for him.”
Steam curled upward.
Amerei leaned closer, lips parted as if to speak, but the words trembled at the edge of her throat. At last, a breath-thin question slipped free.
“Will it hurt?”
…as though shaping the fear aloud might bind it true.
Juliet bent to press a kiss to her crown.
“Remember what I told you, darling. You are not a vessel to be filled. You are a gate—of fire, of grace. You do not brace against him. You meet him.”
Amerei exhaled, the words sinking into her like the water’s heat, loosening the last of her tension.
“When the hour comes,” Juliet whispered, her voice as soft as the rising steam, “breathe. He will press into you. It may ache, but the ache will fade.”
Gentle fingers brushed her brow.
“Let him in. Let him love you.”
Let him love you.
The phrase sank deeper than the bathwater, deeper than the warmth on her skin. For one breathless moment Amerei let herself imagine it—the weight of Viktor’s hands steady at her waist, his mouth breaking against her name, his breath tangled with hers like prayer.
Viktor’s kiss was fire beneath embers—soft at the surface, searing beneath. Every time her lips touched his, something in her reached for the storm inside him—and longed to be struck.
He would be gentle. He always was, even when hunger drove him near to breaking. He waited when she trembled. He held her as if he would never let go.
“Breathe with him,” Juliet whispered, pouring warm water over her shoulders. “You are safe.”
Safe.
The word unfurled in Amerei’s chest like light.
Her fear had never truly been of him. It was of being seen—of being known. Of trusting he would stay. Of believing he meant every vow.
“I will break the gates of Elysium to be with you.”
He had suffered so much in the Vykenraven. War loomed like a storm on the horizon. Yet when he looked at her, nothing else existed.
In his eyes, she was more than a princess, more than a commander’s daughter. She had known it the moment she first saw him in the forest, when his breath caught as though he’d glimpsed something rare.
And when her hands brushed his, mending the net by the riverbank, he had not pulled away. He had stayed—bravely breaking every oath he had sworn to keep.
He loved her, even if she was his undoing. He loved her.
And she believed it now—utterly, wholly—as if she had surfaced after drowning and filled her lungs with the first true breath of her life.
No fear remained. Only the pull to draw him close, to hold him fast, to never let him go.
