He rises, lifting me with him, closing the distance until his hand cradles the back of my head, my cheek pressed to his chest. Not passion, but tether. A vow in the steadiness of his heartbeat.
“If this is where I must keep you, then in my arms is where you belong,” he whispers.
I sink into him. Into safety. Into want.
When the meal is finished, Vale rises and offers me his arm. I hesitate only a moment before slipping my hand into the crook of his elbow. The warmth there steadies me more than I wish to admit.
The palace reveals itself in layers as we walk: vaulted corridors draped in banners, tall windows black with night, and sconces burning low and golden. The stone seems endless, hall after hall, stair after stair. It’s too vast to comprehend, and in that vastness my thoughts have too much room to stir.
I try to reconcile it all—the man I nursed back from death, the man who laughed with me in a glade, who kissed me as thunder broke overhead—with the weight of this place. Its portraits and carvings, its silent watch of guards. Its king. My Vale.
Courtiers pass, their steps hushed against the polished stone. They offer nods, murmured greetings. Vale’s posture holds all the dignity of a ruler, his hand never once tightening on mine. But the moment each passerby is gone, his fingers brush against mine—fleeting touches, secret and searing. Each sends a pulse of heat through me, tightening my chest, stirring memory of the storm-swept kiss.
The halls seem endless, yet I wish them longer, if only to remain caught between his restraint and the hunger I glimpse when his eyes fall to me in the shadows.
At last he speaks, his voice low, breaking through my restless thoughts. “You’re quiet, little flame. What weighs on you?”
“This place,” I admit. “It’s immense. I don’t know that I’ll ever learn its lay.”
His lips curve, though the shadow of worry never leaves his eyes. “Tomorrow I’ll show you places where you can feel at ease. But tonight, there’s only one place I want you to see.”
We turn into a narrow hall, little more than a servant’s passage, and come to a wooden door. Beyond it, a spiral staircase coils upward. Vale leads me by the hand, each step drawing us closer to the whisper of night air.
When the door above opens, stars spill across the dark sky, scattered in dazzling constellations. The palace stretches below, carved from the mountain itself, its towers gleaming faintly in moonlight.
“This is Caerhollan,” he says, his voice a rumble behind me. His hand settles at the small of my back, pulling me gently against him. “My home.”
Then, softer: “And yours, if you’ll allow it.”
The magnitude of his words strike me. I had only just found a home, barely made it my own. The cottage was a miracle in the woods. Everything I ever wanted and needed in this life. But that was before. Before him. Before my heart forgot all reason.
He comes close, his chest warm against my back, his arm circling mine.
“It’s all so much,” I whisper, the truth pulled from me by night air and his nearness.
“Then let me hold you in it.” His voice is low, roughened with want and something deeper. “You’re not alone here. And never will be, if I have any say.”
His hands find my waist, steady but hungry. I turn, pressing my palms to his chest, then his shoulder. His eyes catch mine—moonlight catching in the dark depths.
He tilts my chin with one finger, and his lips brush against mine until his mouth claims me. Not the deluge of the storm, but a vow. A reckoning. His lips press with purpose, then part, coaxing me into him. When my breath hitches, he deepens the kiss, tongue brushing mine in a slow, deliberate tease that makes heat coil low in my belly.
My hands slide higher, fingers curling into the hair at his nape, pulling him closer. I press against him, feeling the strength of his chest, the tremor that runs through him when I answer his hunger with my own. His grip at my waist tightens, drawing me flush against him, and for a heartbeat it feels as if nothing in the world can pull us apart.
Each press of his lips is a promise I’m not alone—but beneath it, there’s want. Unmasked. Bare.
When breath finally breaks between us, his thumb traces slow circles at my throat. He lingers close, forehead resting against mine, his breath warm on my lips before his voice comes like fire.
“Tomorrow I’ll present you to all. But tonight—tonight is ours.”
Chapter Twelve
My fingertips trace lazy lines across my lips, the reminder of his kiss lingering the next morning. The morning moves in a haze—not the dizzying rush of the day before, but something different. Stillness. I never want to let go of it.
Under the starlight, looking down over the mountain palace, nothing else had mattered. Not the fear, not the questions—only him. In Vale’s arms, the world vanished, leaving only breath and warmth. That first kiss was a tempest; last night an arrival. The memory wraps around me now as the tailor works, pins biting cloth into shape.
Soria bustles nearby, steady as ever. Her presence is never jarring; it carries a quiet rhythm, its authority softened by compassion. Something about her makes it easy to feel safe, even in this strange place.
Safe. The thought catches me. After everything that drove us here, the blood, the chase through the woods, it feels foreign on my tongue. Fear should come from the threat that pushed us from the forest. And yet it’s the thought of being seen again, of standing among others, that unsettles me. How rarely I have known peace before. My mind wanders where I do not mean for it to go: back to faces in the village, to smiles half-earned. The baker setting aside a loaf of my father’s favorite whenstock was low, the butcher nodding gratitude for the herbs I gathered that healed his hand. Fleeting kindnesses that almost make me fond of those days. Almost.
