His gaze drops to my chest—where the piece of the Crown rests now, warm against my skin.
I lift my hand and cover it instinctively, fingers splayed over the new weight like I’m afraid someone could steal it.
Dagan’s jaw flexes once.
“You feel it,” he says.
It isn’t a question.
I swallow. “I feel… all of it.”
The Marches.
The realm.
The quiet that comes after the storm.
The way hope doesn’t just belong to one place, but threads through everything—through New Jersey sidewalks and Nightfall quarries and the dream-breath of worlds I’ll never see.
My voice comes out rough.
“I thought saving a world would feel… loud. Like fireworks. Like victory speeches. But it feels like this instead.”
His brow lowers slightly. “Like what?”
I look out over the fields, the glow-sap trees, the terraces where tomorrow will be planted.
“Like a responsibility you can’t put down.”
A faint, almost imperceptible flare of something moves in his eyes—approval, maybe.
Pride. Fear.
He steps closer until the stone railing presses into my hips and he’s caging me without actually touching me, the way he does when his instincts want more than his patience will allow.
Then his hand rises and rests over mine, covering the Crown piece through fabric and skin, anchoring us together.
His voice drops, quiet and brutal with truth.
“You take on a great responsibility when you did this, Oona,” he murmurs. “It means you can never leave.”
The words hit like cold water.
Not because I didn’t understand the stakes—but because hearing them said out loud makes it real in a way nothing else has.
My throat tightens.
For half a heartbeat, my old life flashes through my head like a cheap montage.
My beat-up Jeep.
My apartment with the too-thin walls and too-quiet nights.
My job sites, my reports, my endless scramble to fix cracks that weren’t supposed to exist.
A life that looked stable from the outside and felt like I was always bracing for the next tremor.
Then I look up at Dagan.
