The confession hangs between us. I expect her to deflect, to retreat into safer territory. Instead, she reaches across the table and places her hand over mine. Her fire meets my frost at the point of contact, and neither of us flinches.
“I want to rebuild Valdoria.” Her voice is quiet, intimate in the candlelit library. “Not the way it was—the politics and the careful masks and everyone wanting something from me. Something new. Better.” Her fingers tighten on mine. “And I want... I want someone who sees me. Not the power or the bloodline or the Crown. Just me.”
“I see you.” The words escape before I can stop them.
Her breath catches. For a moment, neither of us moves.
“I know.” She doesn’t withdraw her hand. “That’s what terrifies me too.”
FOURTEEN
AUREN
The candles have burned low by the time we exhaust the research—and ourselves.
Tamsin has stopped pretending she’s not tired. Her head keeps dipping toward the table, her blinks growing longer, her responses slower. But she refuses to admit defeat, stubbornly reviewing notes she’s already read multiple times.
“There has to be something.” Her voice is thick with exhaustion. “Some weakness we haven’t found. Some way to—” A yawn interrupts her. “To ensure she can’t complete the ritual.”
“We’ve identified several potential vulnerabilities. That’s more than we had before tonight.” I close the text I’ve been reading. “But none of it will matter if you collapse from exhaustion before we can implement any of it.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re listing.” I nod at her posture—she’s tilted sideways in her chair, propped up by an elbow that keeps slipping. “Your body is trying to sleep whether you permit it or not.”
“Just a few more minutes.” But her eyes are already closing, her head dropping toward the table. “I need to find...”
She doesn’t finish the sentence.
Her head comes to rest on her crossed arms, and her breathing shifts into the slow rhythm of sleep. Just like that—mid-thought, mid-sentence—her body finally overrides her stubborn determination.
I should wake her. Should tell her to return to her own quarters, to sleep in an actual bed instead of slumped over a research table. The library isn’t designed for overnight stays.
Instead, I watch her sleep.
In sleep, the tension leaves her face. The fierce determination that defines her waking hours softens into something younger, more vulnerable. Her fire has dimmed to embers, flickering faintly around her fingers like the glow of a banked hearth. The copper highlights in her hair catch the candlelight.
She’s beautiful. I’ve known this since she arrived—assessed it clinically, catalogued it as relevant data, filed it away under observations that shouldn’t matter. But watching her now, unguarded and exhausted and so impossibly human despite her unprecedented power, beautiful seems like too small a word.
I think about what she told me. Watching her sister change and being unable to stop it. Losing her parents, her kingdom, everything she knew—and still fighting. Still researching. Still looking for ways to protect people who aren’t even her responsibility.
She’s not Morrigan’s sister.
The thought arrives with the force of revelation, though I’ve been moving toward it for days. She’s not defined by her bloodline or her family’s crimes. She’s Tamsin. Brilliant, fierce, carrying burdens that would break most people and refusing to bend. A woman who throws herself off walls to save dragons who’ve given her no reason for loyalty. Who researches through the night because she can’t bear to wait while others are in danger. Who admits to guilt and grief and uncertainty with honesty that makes my own walls feel like cowardice.
She’s become essential to me.
The realization should be alarming. Should trigger every defense mechanism I’ve developed over centuries of careful emotional management. Instead, it settles into me with a rightness that feels almost peaceful.
I’m in trouble. Deep, dangerous trouble.
And I find I don’t entirely mind.
I can’t leaveher here.
The library is climate-controlled, but it’s not warm—I keep the temperature low to preserve the older texts. She’ll wake cold and stiff, her neck aching from the awkward position, her body punishing her for the abuse she’s put it through.
I tell myself this is strategic. She needs to be functional for the coming confrontation. Allowing her to damage herself through improper rest would be tactically inadvisable.
