She’s here. Actually here. Not a dream, not a hallucination brought on by centuries of grief. Real and alive and laughing in my home.
“You’re staring.”
Drayke’s voice pulls me back to the present. He’s standing a few feet away, arms crossed, watching me with an expression that’s too knowing for comfort.
“I’m observing. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” He moves to stand beside me, his attention following mine toward the great hall where Selene has disappeared with Nasyra. “She tried to kill you. Multiple times, from what you’ve told me. And now you’re watching her like she hung the moon.”
“Half a lifetime of grief will do that to a dragon.”
“Apparently so.” Drayke’s voice carries something that might be sympathy. Might be concern. “Selene will take care of her tonight. She’s good at this—making people feel less hunted.”
“I know.” I’d counted on it, actually. Had asked Drayke to have Selene ready before we arrived, knowing that Nasyra would respond better to a Fire-Bringer than to any dragon. Knowing she needed someone who wasn’t me.
The admission stings more than it should.
“What’s your plan?” Drayke’s voice is carefully neutral. “Long term. You can’t shadow her forever.”
“I don’t have one.” The honesty surprises us both. “Get her here. Keep her safe. Give her time to remember. Beyond that...” I shake my head. “I’ve been surviving day to day for so long. Planning further ahead feels like tempting fate.”
“And if she never remembers? Never feels what you want her to feel?”
The question lands with precision, finding the fear I’ve been trying not to examine too closely. I watch the torchlight flicker across the courtyard stones, gathering my thoughts.
“Then she doesn’t,” I say finally. “I’ll still protect her. Still make sure Lakhu never gets his hands on her again. What we had before—“ The words catch in my throat. “That’s not why I’m doing this.”
“Isn’t it?”
I turn to face him. The Guardian King stands in the fading light, his expression unreadable, but there’s something in his stance that speaks of understanding. He knows what it is to love someone you thought you couldn’t have. Knows the weight of wanting and waiting and wondering if hope is just another form of torture.
“I loved her once,” I say. “Love her still, if I’m honest. But love isn’t a claim. Isn’t ownership. I won’t hold her to something she doesn’t remember agreeing to.”
Drayke is quiet for a moment. Then he clasps my shoulder—brief, firm, the kind of contact we rarely share.
“Be prepared.” Drayke’s voice carries a warning I can’t quite interpret. “Rurik’s already planning some kind of welcome. Auren wants to interrogate her about Lakhu’s plans. And Aisling has approximately forty-seven questions about resurrection magic that she’s been saving.”
“Wonderful.”
“Welcome to having people who care.” The words are dry, but there’s warmth beneath them. “It’s messy. Invasive. Occasionally involves property damage. But it’s better than the alternative.”
The alternative being alone. Being the shadow no one looked at too closely, the brother who served his purpose and then retreated to his darkness.
I’ve been the alternative for a very long time.
Sleep doesn’t come.Eventually, I stop pretending it will.
The fortress is quiet at this hour—the deep silence of stone and shadow that I’ve always found more comfortable than noise. Guards patrol the outer walls in patterns I could trace with my eyes closed. Torches flicker in sconces, casting pools of light that I instinctively avoid.
I move through familiar hallways without conscious thought, my feet carrying me to the one place I’ve always gone when the weight becomes too much.
The garden.
It’s small. Hidden in a courtyard accessible only through my quarters or a passage no one else knows. Protected from the mountain weather by architecture and magic, filled with flowers that shouldn’t survive at this altitude but do anyway.
Her flowers. The ones she loved. Moonflowers climbing trellises, their white petals glowing faintly in the darkness. Fire lilies clustered in corners, orange and red and gold. Forget-me-nots carpeting the ground beneath roses that smell of summer despite the permanent winter outside.
I started this garden within months of her death. Gathered seeds and cuttings from every bloom she’d ever mentioned loving. Learned cultivation magic from ancient texts, from trial and error, from desperate need to preserve something of her when everything else was gone.
