“You will not use Lady Jesenia or the Lunarethian refugees as a scapegoat for your failures,” he said. “And you will not threaten my kingdom with the consequences of your own unwillingness to govern our people with their best interests in mind.” His gaze hardened. “Not while I still wear this crown. Not while murals of my father paint these halls. And not while it is bymyrule you do not live as the Korvathians do under my brother. You have all grown complacent in your service to me, and I will hear no more of your baseless fears of pacifist refugees. You governeveryonewithin my walls, or none at all.”
He remained standing long after the words settled, and the distance between king and council was suddenly vast.
Moonlight spilledacross the polished stone floors, silver threads glinting between pools of shadow where the torches had burned low. Jesenia’s soft shoes made no sound as she slipped through the long corridor, her shawl drawn close around her shoulders, the weight of her decision pressing heavily against her chest.
She couldn’t stay in the palace any longer, and she certainly couldn’t risk appearing closer to Val-Theris.
Not after the shouting, the riots, the whispers cutting like shards of glass through the square. Her presence was making things worse. For him. For her people. For everyone. If she leftquietly, without a word, perhaps she could still disappear into the quarter again. Become no one.
She rounded the corner into the shadowed side hall that led toward the servants’ gate—and stopped dead. Val-Theris was already there.
He stood beneath one of the tall windows, where moonlight spilled across the marble, his wings half-furled. His arms were folded loosely, but there was nothing casual in his posture; he’d been waiting for her.
“Lady Jesenia.”
The sound of her name on his tongue made her throat tighten, sharp and aching, but she forced her voice steady as she drew her shawl tighter around her.
“You shouldn’t be awake,” she said softly.
“Neither should you,” Val-Theris replied, his tone quiet but edged with something deeper. “Where were you going?”
Her grip on the shawl tightened until the fabric bit into her aching palms. “To the refugee quarter where I belong.”
His gaze sharpened faintly, though his voice remained soft, restrained. “You belonghere, Jesenia, in these halls. As much as any of us.”
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I don’t. And I never will.”
He stepped forward then until he stood close enough that she had to tilt her head slightly to meet his eyes.
“You think leaving will protect your people,” he said quietly, his voice low and steady, as if he’d pulled the thought directly from her chest. “That if you step back into the shadows, mine will stop whispering your name.” Her jaw clenched, but she didn’t answer. “They won’t,” Val-Theris continued, softer now. “They will only sharpen the blade they’ve already drawn, and blame you for being too weak to fight it.”
Jesenia closed her eyes briefly, forcing breath into her lungs. “You’ve seen how they look at me, Val-Theris. How they speak when they think I can’t hear. I’m not one of you. And every time you call me into that chamber, every time you walk beside me in the quarter, you make me something I never wanted to be.”
“What is that?” he asked softly.
“A symbol,” she whispered. “And symbols burn.”
The silence stretched between them, taut and fragile, as Val-Theris’s jaw tightened faintly, shadows cutting sharp across the lines of his face.
“I didn’t ask for any of this,” Jesenia said finally, her voice trembling before she forced it steady. “I didn’t ask for your favor, or your protection, or for people to hate me for standing beside you. My people don’t need a voice in your halls, they need safety. They need to survive. And if my leaving spares them…” Her throat closed briefly, and she swallowed hard before finishing, “…then I will go.”
Something flickered in his expression before he closed the distance between them fully.
“You are not leaving.”
The words were soft, but there was steel beneath them, quiet and unyielding.
Jesenia lifted her chin, meeting his gaze despite the sudden rush of heat in her chest. “You don’t get to decide where I belong.”
His wings shifted behind him, pale feathers brushing faint motes of light from the air. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, rougher, like something held tightly beneath restraint: “I know.” A pause, heavy enough to carry meaning she couldn’t name. “But I can’t watch you walk away.”
Val-Theris’s hand lifted, slow, hesitant, his fingertips hovering just shy of her bruised cheek—close enough that she could feel the faint heat radiating from his skin. But he didn’ttouch her fully, he simply felt a loose strand of her hair between his calloused fingers.
Jesenia couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, caught in the fragile stillness between the impulse to step back and the pull to move closer.
“I will not force you to stay,” Val-Theris said softly, his voice careful and composed, though his breath came slower than before. She knew he meant for more than just a bed in his home, but she also knew he would not admit it.
Jesenia nodded once, unable to trust her voice, and stepped around him. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t.
