She gave him a rueful smile. “I’m sure it already knows.”
“Then we need to move fast. I’ll make another trip down the maintenance shaft later tonight and tomorrow I’ll start gathering supplies.”
“I can prepare food as well.”
He placed his hand under her chin and lifted her face. “Are you sure about this?”
“Very, very sure.”
“The world outside isn’t safe.” His voice was rough. “You understand that now. What your blood can do, what people might?—”
“I understand.” She cut him off gently. “I understand that there are dangers out there I can’t begin to imagine. I understand that leaving this tower means giving up the only security I’ve ever known. I understand that I’m choosing uncertainty over safety, risk over comfort, the terrifying unknown over the suffocating familiar.”
She squeezed his hand.
“I’m choosing it anyway.”
For a long moment, he didn’t respond. He just looked at her—that intense, searching gaze that made her feel like he was seeing past all her defenses, all her carefully constructed understanding of herself, straight to the core of who she really was.
“I can’t promise you safety. I can’t promise that everything will work out, that we’ll reach Rykan without incident, that you’ll love the life waiting for you outside these walls.”
“I know that too.” She smiled, and it felt like the first genuine smile she’d managed in days. “I’m not asking for promises, Baylin. I’m asking for possibility. The chance to find out what I’m capable of, what I might become, who I might be when I’m not defined by four walls and a sealed door.”
“And you want to find out with me.”
It wasn’t a question, but she answered it anyway.
“Yes.” The word came out certain, more sure than anything else she’d ever said. “I trust you. I trust you to keep me safe when you can and to help me survive when you can’t. I trust you to tellme the truth, even when it hurts. I trust you to treat me like a person—not a precious object to be protected, not a problem to be solved, but a person with agency and choices and the right to make her own mistakes.”
She reached up and touched his face, her palm resting against the sharp line of his jaw.
“I want to go with you when you leave. Not because I have no other options, but because I can’t imagine choosing anyone else.”
Something shifted in his expression. The careful control he always maintained cracked, just for a moment, revealing something raw and fierce beneath.
“Liora.” His voice was rough, almost breaking. “Do you have any idea what you’re asking?”
“I think so.”
“I don’t think you do.” He caught her hand, pressing it harder against his face. “My beast has already decided that you’re mine. That I’m supposed to protect you, keep you, never let you go. If I take you into the jungle, if I spend weeks at your side, if I watch you discover the world for the first time...”
“Then what?”
“Then I don’t know if I’ll be able to let you choose anyone else.” The admission seemed to cost him something. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to stand aside if you decide you want a different life, a different person, a different future than the one I’m imagining.”
Her heart was pounding, but not with fear.
“What future are you imagining?”
“One where you’re beside me.” His thumb traced across her knuckles. “One where I wake up every morning knowing you’re safe. One where I get to watch you discover oceans and cities and stars and everything else you’ve been denied.” A pause. “One where you choose to stay.”
“That sounds like a good future.”
“It sounds like a lot to ask of someone who’s never had the chance to explore other options.”
“Maybe.” She nestled even closer, until there was almost no space between them. “But maybe I don’t need to explore other options to know what I want. Maybe twenty-one years of isolation has given me excellent clarity about what matters.”
“And what matters?”
