Val-Theris held still, listening.
“But you,” she continued, voice trembling with something like grief, “you did stop. You came here. You said you were wrong.” She swallowed hard. “I’ve been waiting for someone powerful to admit that. Even once. And I don’t know what to do with that,” she admitted. “Because part of me wants to stay angry. Part of me wants to keep my distance so you can’t hurt me like that again.”
Val-Theris’s voice was barely audible. “I understand.”
Jesenia let out a slow, shaking breath.
“But another part of me,” she said softly, “remembers the way you looked at me when I stepped through those gates and I saw you standing above the plaza. That moment when our gazes collided and it seemed like you were remembering me from atime that had not happened yet. Like I wasn’t just a foreigner in your city. Like I mattered in some way.”
Val-Theris’s chest rose with a restrained breath.
“You do matter,” he said quietly.
Jesenia nodded once, tears still slipping down her cheeks. “Then don’t ask me to be your solution,” she said. “Ask me to be your partner.”
Val-Theris went utterly still. “If you forgive me,” he said quietly, “I will spend the rest of my life proving that you were not wrong to.”
Jesenia closed her eyes for a long moment. When she opened them, her gaze was still guarded. But softer.
“I forgive you,” she said, but it came out like it was the hardest thing she ever had to say.
Val-Theris’s breath left him like he had been holding it for days. His hand lifted again—slow, tentative. He waited, eyes searching hers for permission rather than assuming it. Jesenia did not move away. So he touched her, his fingertips along her cheek where the bruise still lingered, warm and careful as prayer.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Jesenia’s eyes closed briefly under the touch.
“I know,” she whispered back.
Val-Theris leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers. His wings shifted, folding slightly around her without fully enclosing—an instinct tempered by restraint to preserve the moment and shield them from eyes that did not deserve to see them.
He moved away slightly to meet her eyes once more, and offered her his hand.
And she took it without hesitation.
NINETEEN
From this height,Solmiris was nothing more than a shimmer of gold veins in the dark—its towers and bridges softened by the night wind, its noise swallowed by distance.
Val-Theris stood at the edge of the parapet, wings folded loosely behind him. The moonlight caught along the curve of each feather, turning him into something that could not hide its divinity. He had brought Jesenia to a place that few knew of, and none could enter without the flight he was born with.
It was a platform of marble high in the mountains, above the golden dome of the palace. It offered an unobscured view of the city below, and the world beyond stretched for miles upon miles.
Jesenia stepped closer, her breath visible in the cool air. “I didn’t know there was a way up here,” she said quietly.
“There isn’t,” he replied, looking back at her with a small, knowing smile. “Not for anyone else.”
“It’s breathtaking.” She glanced to her feet, where a blanket covered the marble, and a pitcher of wine sat next to a basket of fruit. “Why bring me?”
“Because this is the only place in the kingdom that doesn’t belong to anyone but me,” he said. “And I wanted you to share it with me—to see what it feels like to be free in my city.”
They sat together on the ledge, the wind teasing her hair into soft threads of silver. Jesenia drew her knees closer, tucking her hands beneath her shawl, though she was not cold. Not next to him, at least.
“You bring me to places like this,” she said at last, her voice low, careful, “and I forget that I do not belong.”
Val-Theris turned his head slightly, studying her profile in the moonlight. “You do belong,” he said quietly. “Damn what anyone else may have to say about it. You do belong, Jesenia. Right here. With me. And I do not want to pretend otherwise anymore.”
Her breath caught, subtle but unmistakable. She looked at him then, at the calm gravity in his expression, at the restraint etched into the way he held himself, as though every instinct urged him forward and every oath held him back.
