She didn’t look away.
She stayed.
Her hand skimmed the water’s surface, ripples breaking the quiet. The tub brimmed, heat lapping at the marble edges.
“Come,” she whispered.
And he did.
She stepped in first, sighing as warmth rose around her skin.
He followed, heat curling up his legs.
“Dask, that’s warm,” he muttered.
She laughed—soft, hushed—as the water sloshed between them. She gathered him to her chest, her arms cradling his shoulders, her mouth brushing the crown of his hair as she untied the last of his braids.
“I thought I’d lost you today,” he whispered against her chest. “When he led you down that hall.”
“I felt it,” she breathed. “I know.”
His brow pressed to her collarbone.
“You didn’t just look like a queen today,” he said. “You looked likehisqueen. You spoke—dask, love—like someone who should command the realm. Like someone I could never reach. And for a moment… I wondered what right I had to keep you. To stop you from becoming who you’re meant to be.”
She was quiet.
Candlelight flickered across the water.
Her hand moved again—slow, deliberate—drawing the cloth over his shoulders. Each motion was penance. A promise.
Finally, she spoke.
“High-Captain,” she said softly. “You’re not powerful enough to stop me. Yet I am here. With you. And not in Amethyst.”
Her fingers curled at his nape.
“I am yours,” she whispered, pressing her lips to his brow. “And always will be. Even if the realm forgets my name.”
“I cannot ask that of you—”
“I am Casqadia’s queen,” she said, holding him to her heart. Her voice was soft, fierce, sovereign. “Who gave you the right to ask?”
He had no answer. Not for a queen who had already chosen.
In silence, she soaked his hair, cleansing it with oils. Her fingers moved through his scalp, each touch a benediction. When she finished, he reached for her, unpinning her long locks until they fell heavy and damp down her back.
They laughed when he fumbled with the lather, but she never stopped him. Never hurried him.
He asked her to turn, to lay against him, so he could run the cloth along her back. And though his body ached for hers, and though she pressed into him, they held each other through the quiet—bathing one another in the kind of silence born only of love’s knowing.
When at last they rose, the candle burned low.
They dressed each other in silence.
And when they curled into the quiet warmth of bed, only the whispered words:
“I love you.”
