Her whole body went still.
“Baylin.” Her voice was choked. “The smell.”
He crouched beside her, breathing in the sweet, heady fragrance that rose from the blossoms. It was pleasant enough—a typical jungle flower, nothing special to his senses. But to someone who had never smelled anything that didn’t come from a greenhouse or a recycled air system...
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever smelled.”
Tears were streaming down her face now, but she was smiling so wide it had to hurt.
Pip glided down from his branch and landed on her shoulder, nuzzling against her cheek with a soft, comforting coo. She reached up to stroke his fur, her other hand still buried in the flowers.
“There’s so much,” she said, her voice cracking. “So much I haven’t seen. Haven’t touched. Haven’t smelled or tasted or felt. Twenty-one years, and I’ve been missing all of it.”
Baylin sat down beside her, his shoulder brushing against hers.
“You have time,” he said quietly. “We have time. There’s no rush now. No deadline. Just... the world, waiting for you to explore it.”
She turned to look at him, her eyes wet and shining and full of something that made his chest ache.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For finding me. For coming to the tower. For not giving up, even when Ari tried to keep us apart.” She reached out and touched his face, her palm warm against his cheek. “For making me want something more than safety.”
He covered her hand with his own, pressing it closer.
“I didn’t make you want anything. You already wanted it. I just... showed you it was possible.”
“Same thing.”
It wasn’t, not really, but he didn’t argue. Not when she was looking at him like that. Not when the sunlight was catching her tears and turning them to diamonds on her cheeks. Not when every instinct in his body was screaming that this woman—this impossible, beautiful, brave woman—was his, and he would burn the world down before he let anything take her away.
Pip chittered and launched himself into the air again, gliding towards a cluster of trees where something had caught his attention. Liora watched him go, her smile returning.
“He’s so happy,” she said. “I’ve never seen him like this.”
“Neither have I.”
She looked at him, tilting her head in that curious way she had. “Have you ever seen anyone like this? This happy, I mean?”
He thought about it. Tried to remember a time when he’d witnessed pure, unguarded joy—the kind that had nothing to do with victory or relief or the absence of pain, but was simply happiness for its own sake.
“No,” he admitted. “I don’t think I have.”
“Then we’re both experiencing something new.”
She stood up, brushing grass and flower petals from her skirt, and held out her hand to him.
“Come on. I want to see everything. Touch everything. I want to put my feet in that stream I can hear. I want to taste whatever those fruits are growing on that tree. I want to find out if the bark feels different on different kinds of trees, and if the rocks are warm or cold, and if the shadows under the canopy are darker than they looked from my window.”
He took her hand and let her pull him to his feet.
“Lead the way.”
She grinned—that wild, reckless grin that made his heart stumble—and ran.
He followed.
