She doesn’t ask. Doesn’t say anything at all. Just sits with me, her weight warm and solid and present in a way that bypasses every defense I’ve built and goes straight for the soft center.
That’s all it takes.
The tears come properly then. Not the quiet drip from before. The kind that means it. The kind I haven’t let happen in years because there was never anyone I trusted enough to fall apart in front of.
I trusted Pepper. And I threw that away.
And somehow Kestra, this Unseelie princess who chose me when she didn’t have to, is the one sitting in the dark with me while I pay for it.
Her fingers thread through mine. We sit there watching the twilight dawn settle across the canopy. The catcalls of the forest go quiet, like even the Dark Forest knows better than to interrupt this.
It won’t last. Nothing in this forest lasts.
But for now, Kestra’s hand is in mine, and I let myself have it.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, sitting up and turning to me.
“Maybe a little.” I look over at where Finnian and Tiana are fast asleep, then back to Kestra. “I don’t really know how much I should be telling you,” I tease. “Knowing you’ll be dealing with this one day, too.”
“Who says I haven’t already?” she replies.
“The Trial of Survival,” I whisper.
“Oh.” That’s all she has to say to get it.
“The dreams and the fact that I have to face my demons. The ones projected to all of Faerie. I just—” I pause, shaking my head. “Two out of three cousins accepted my apology.”
“But not one?”
“Not Pepper.” I blow out a breath, my throat closing all over again. “And honestly, I don’t deserve her forgiveness.”
Kestra hums. “Do you forgive yourself?”
“No.” I say it fast. “Not at all. I was a fucking coward. I couldn’t face my demons and work through it. I ran. And I ran hard and I ran far. I wouldn’t forgive me.”
“Maybe you should start there.”
“Why do you have to come at me with logic, Kestra?” I bump her shoulder.
She laughs. Something in my chest eases a fraction.
Then I think about Pepper’s back. Still and rigid and done with me.
The fraction closes.
“Well, I do have a very helpful?—”
The forest goes silent.
Not the comfortable quiet from before. Something else. The held-breath kind. The kind I’ve learned means something in this place has decided to move.
She pushes me out of the way just as pain detonates across my entire arm.
It comes through the moss curtain.
One second I’m watching dawn light filter through the hanging vines and the next something black and enormous tears through the entrance and my body is already moving before my brain finishes the thought.
It lands where I was sitting.
