Val-Theris closed his eyes briefly, as if bracing himself.
“I did,” he admitted. “Some part of me did.” He opened his eyes again. “And I did it anyway because I thought the ends would justify it. Because I thought my intentions would make it clean. That you might see what your people needed andunderstand. That…you’d give them one more part of yourself when I had no right to ask that of you.”
His gaze held hers. Jesenia did not speak, but the air changed. She listened. Val-Theris’s wings shifted faintly, feathers brushing against one another with a soft, restless sound. “I cannot change what I said,” he said softly. “I cannot undo the way it made you feel. But I can tell you what I should have told you then.”
Jesenia’s hands loosened slightly on her shawl. Her gaze remained guarded. Val-Theris bowed his head a fraction—an acknowledgment that felt almost ceremonial.
“I want you by my side,” he said quietly. “Not as an answer. Not as a symbol. Not as a chess piece to corner my council. I want you because you are Jesenia. Because you walk through starvation and still find room to carry others. Because you have every reason to hate my city and yet you keep saving the people within it. Because your courage shames both men and gods, and I am jealous of how you do it so easily.”
Jesenia’s lips parted. Her breath trembled.
“I came here to say that I was wrong,” he continued. “And that I am sorry for using your gentle heart to try and solve problems you never created.”
Jesenia stared at him for a long time. Finally, she spoke. “You wanted to marry me,” she said slowly, “so that my people could stop starving.”
Val-Theris nodded once. “Yes.”
“And you believed it was noble.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t stop to consider that making me your queen would paint a target on my back larger than anything I’ve ever known.”
Val-Theris’s throat worked. “I did consider it,” he admitted. “And I chose to ignore it, believing I could protect you fromany threat that followed.” Val-Theris’s hand lifted as if to reach for her, then stopped, hovering in the air between them before lowering again. He did not touch without permission. “I am used to choosing,” he said. “Kings choose. Gods choose. We decide and the world obeys or breaks.”
His gaze held hers with painful steadiness.
“And then you looked at me and asked if what we had was real…and I realized I had been treating you like an outcome.”
Jesenia’s eyes shone now, tears held in place by sheer force.
“What we haveisreal,” she whispered, as if the words hurt to say. “Or itwas. Until you made me feel like…like you’d chosen me because it solved a problem.”
Val-Theris took a slow breath. He stepped back half a pace—not retreating, but giving her space as if space was the only thing he could offer properly.
“I cannot promise you that I will fix Seraveth,” he said. “I cannot promise you the council will ever meet me halfway. I cannot promise you the people will stop whispering.” His eyes softened. “But I can promise you this: I will never again ask you to sacrifice your heart for my war.”
Jesenia stared at him, and something in her expression wavered—like a wall cracking.
“You don’t understand,” she said quietly. “When you offered me marriage like that, it felt like you were asking me to be grateful.”
Val-Theris’s brow furrowed.
“Grateful to be chosen,” she continued, voice trembling now. “Grateful to be pulled out of the mud and placed in your palace. As if I should thank you for giving me a place at your table while my people starve beneath your walls.”
Val-Theris’s face twisted with pain. “I never wanted you to feel that,” he said.
“But I did,” Jesenia replied, and her voice finally broke. “And for a moment, I regretted every moment we spent together—I questioned every conversation, every gaze, every touch—wondering if it was all part of some ulterior motive I was too foolish to see.”
Jesenia wiped at her cheek with the edge of her shawl, but the tears kept coming, quiet and steady.
“I hate your council,” she said, voice raw. “I hate the way they look at me. I hate the way your people spit my name like it’s poison.” Her breath hitched. “But I do not hate you.”
The confession filled the space between them. Val-Theris’s throat tightened. He looked down, as if the emotion might be too much to hold in her gaze.
“Jesenia,” he said softly.
She shook her head once, cutting him off—not cruelly, but because she needed to say it before she lost the courage. “I don’t forgive easily,” she whispered. “We Lunarethians don’t have the luxury of forgiving people who hurt us, because most of the time the people who hurt us don’t stop.”
