I lieawake long after he goes quiet, the shadows keepingtheir distance for once. Sleep doesn’t come. Not with his voice echoing in my ears, or the memory of his breath on my skin. Especially not with the way my heart had tripped at his words.
I wasnotflustered. I just miscalculated.
That was all...right?
Chapter 19
?---- Koen ? ----?
I sit up, breath catching in my throat like it always does after strange dreams. In that one, there had been fire, vampires, and that voice I didn’t recognize, but feltlike it hadalways belonged to me.
The night is quiet, and the ruins around us are still. I rub my eyes, glancing to the bench where Serenya had been resting earlier, only to find it empty.
I rise without thinking, finding her outside.
She is standing on the stone steps of the ruins, arms folded across her chest, head tilted toward the heavens as though she belongs to them. Moonlight pours over her, catching in the waves of her white hair, the black streaks falling like ink against silver. The sky above is a sweep of stars—brilliant, endless, and untouchable. Yet even as they burn, my gaze stays on her, to the way she seems cut from the same light. For all the beauty above, she is the one whosteals the night.
“Can’t sleep?” I ask in a low voice.
She doesn’t startle. Just glances over her shoulder, thenturns back to the sky. “It helps. Looking at the stars, I mean. When there’s too much in my head.”
I walk up beside her, giving her space but standing close enough to see the tension in her shoulders.
“I used to stargaze often with…with a friend,” she says quietly. “Before everything changed.”
I stay silent.
“I stopped looking at them after he died,” she murmurs. “For a while, just seeing them hurt. Like they reminded me of what I’d lost. He used to say the stars were stories the gods wrote across the sky.”
I swallow. Something tugs in my chest at her words.
She has never talked to me like this before. Not once. She trained me, barked orders, rolled her eyes when I said something that annoyed her—which, if I’m honest, was often. Now, she looks like someone else entirely. I don’t want to ruin it, but I don’t want it to end either.
“Tell me about him,” I say, quietly. “...If you want.”
Her eyes don’t leave the sky, but something in her expression changes. A muscle in her jaw relaxes, and a breath escapes her. She doesn’t hesitate.
“He was infuriating,” she laughs softly. “And reckless. He always ran toward danger instead of away from it. He made terrible jokes when I was trying to be serious. And somehow…” Her amusement fades. “He was the only one who ever made me feel calm.”
She pauses, then turns and gives me a faint and distant smile.
“He used to stand just like that. Arms crossed, chintilted, pretending to be unimpressed by everything. But I’d catch him watching the stars like they held secrets he wasn’t ready to say out loud.”
I watch her speak, unsure why my chest aches so much with every word.
“He died protecting me. Even now, I can’t decide if I'm grateful or furious with him for it.”
There was nothing I could say to that, so I just continued to stand beside her. We stay like that for a while, not speaking, just watching the stars. While the wind whispers low through the trees, and the night seems to hold its breath.
Eventually, she breaks the silence.
“We should rest.”
I follow her back into the ruins, and when we liedown again, I liecloser to the bench this time. I close my eyes to dreams I don’t understand. But for once, the quiet doesn’t feel empty.
When I wake, it’s to the sound of fabric rustling and the soft creak of leather. For a moment, I’m not sure where I am. Then my eyes land on her.
Serenya stands just beyond the ruined stone archway, her back to me, hair already braided back. Her silhouette is outlined in pale, gray-blue morning light, and her shadows curl lazily near her feet.
