Nythir exhaled slowly. He had seen her furious, stubborn, terrified, brave. He had never seen her this undone, crushed beneath a weight no one had ever taught her how to carry.
He reached toward her and paused halfway, giving her time to pull away. She did not.
Very gently, he brushed a tear from her cheek with the back of his knuckles. Her skin was cool from the shade of the tree.
“Essie,” he said softly. “You do not have to be her.”
She blinked at him, eyes blurry and confused.
“You are not failing her,” he went on. “Those who failed are those who kept her memory locked away from you. You grew up with silence instead of stories. With rules instead of guidance. With expectations instead of truth.”
Essie’s gaze dropped to the ground again. A beetle crawled across the toe of her boot, and she did not seem to notice.
“Your mother was not meant to be a legend you must compete with,” Nythir said. “She was your mother. And the grief others carry is not yours to shape into duty.”
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed.
“You think you are failing because you do not know enough,” he said quietly. “But you are here. You are trying. You care. That alone would have made her proud.”
Essie shook her head, slow and miserable.
“I do not feel strong,” she said.
“Strength is not a feeling,” Nythir replied. “It is something you discover when you refuse to stay broken.”
He hesitated, words gathering like stones he had avoided lifting for years.
“You asked how I stay calm,” he said. “How I know who I am. The truth is, I did not.”
Essie sniffed, dragging her sleeve over her nose without much dignity. “What do you mean?”
“My life used to feel gray,” Nythir said. “I was born in a town so small it never made it onto any map. We had one road, one tavern, and one old man who shouted at the clouds for changing too fast. Every day was the same. Quiet. Predictable. Empty.”
A wry smile tugged at his mouth.
“I worked in a tannery for a while,” he said. “All day, every day, it was the same dull leather and the same smell that clung to my clothes no matter how often I washed them. I was surviving, not living. I felt like I had no purpose. Nothing that felt like color.”
Essie watched him with wide, wet eyes, as if it had never occurred to her that his world could ever have been anything but bright.
“Then I met Lyssara and Vorrik,” he said. His smile softened. “Two nightmares who walked on two legs and laughed arounda campfire. They dragged me out of that gray world and tossed me into chaos. Loud, annoying, wonderful chaos. The kind that makes your blood move again.”
Essie’s lips twitched, the faintest ghost of a smile.
“But even with them,” Nythir continued, “something was missing. There were fears I did not understand. Emptiness I could not name.”
His voice lowered. He slid his hand along the grass until his pinky brushed against hers.
“Then I met you,” he said, his heart hammering far too fast for someone only sitting. “You brought more color into my life than anything before.”
He stared at their hands, fingers barely touching.
“You confuse me,” he admitted. “You surprise me. You terrify me. And you make every day feel like something new.”
Essie’s breath caught. Her fingers curled, just a little, against his.
“I do not know who I am without you anymore,” he said quietly. “And I do not want to.”
Her eyes filled again, but the tears were softer now, like rain after a storm instead of the storm itself.
