“Tell me.”
Her thumb traced the ridge of a scar at his ribs, the one that always made her want to press a kiss there.
“I used to think my mother’s death was… fever. Father said it was consumption, but swifter, days instead of years.”
A breath.
“But in Fyreglade I started to see it—the timing, the physicians, the court. The way I remember feeling, as a little girl, when Zeporah would move through the halls and everyone looked away.”
She swallowed.
“I think she had my mother poisoned.”
The word hung between them like a bell’s last toll.
His breath left him slow, controlled—the hush that lives under snow. He didn’t reach for a weapon. He reached for her hand and covered the cord where it lay between them, as if bracing both vow and wound at once.
“I wondered,” he said, voice low. “When I realized our mothers left us—”
“In the same year.”
His eyes shut tight.
“Amerei,” he breathed, the sound roughened, “something happened in that year. Something only you and I can unmake.”
Her hand clutched at his side, fierce despite the tremor in her voice.
“What can I do, Viktor? Tell me what I can do.”
Her voice thinned, but it didn’t break.
“I’m trapped in Xavien’s court, bound to the elves until this war is over. I can’t stand here and do nothing.”
His hand slid from the cord, down her arm, anchoring hard at her waist.
“You do nothing but live for me.”
His breath seared her temple, low and unrelenting.
“You wait. You breathe. You survive—because I’ll tear down every wall, every crown, every bastard who stands between us to come back to you.”
The canvas creaked. A night breeze slipped through the seam and lifted a strand of her hair. He smoothed it back, thumb catching the damp at her temple, his voice softening to a murmur.
“And I’ll take vengeance on Zeporah. For Aerdania. For Casqadia. For us.”
He drew her closer beneath the blanket, the whole of him a shield, heat and muscle closing out the world beyond the canvas.
Her hand found his heartbeat again, desperate to hold herself there.
“If Father calls to me while I’m away,” she whispered, trembling against his shoulder, “I will answer. I want to know that you’re alive.”
“Ami…”
His hand came up, callused thumb finding the notch above her brow.
“You don’t need your father for that.”
His eyes burned into hers, almost unbelieving of his own words.
