"Then let me help you heal."
"You can't fix me."
"Maybe not. But I can hold you while you learn to fix yourself."
She pulled back, looking at me with those brown eyes, those steady hands that had saved so many lives.
"I need you to know," she said. "Nathan—it wasn't love. It was... need. Hunger. Something I can't explain."
"I know."
"He's not like you. He doesn't love me. He wants me, but he doesn't love me."
"Don't tell me that." I touched her chin, tilting her face toward mine. "Don't tell me about him. I don't want to hear about him. I just want you. Here. With me."
She nodded. The tears were still falling, but there was something else in her face now—relief, maybe. Or gratitude.
"I want to be the one you choose," I said. "In the end. When this is all over. Choose me."
She didn't answer.
But she pulled me onto the bed with her, and I wrapped my arms around her, and she cried against my chest until there were no tears left.
We lay in the dark for a long time.
The fire had gone out. The candles had burned low. The only light came from the moon through the window, silver and cold, casting shadows across the bed.
"Tell me something good," she whispered. "Something that isn't about this place. About this family. Tell me something good."
I thought about it. The question was harder than it should have been. My life had been so full of darkness—the empire, the violence, the weight of my name. But there were good things, too. Small things. Things I'd almost forgotten.
"When I was a kid," I said, "my mother used to take me to the garden. In the spring, when everything was blooming. She'd show me the flowers and tell me their names in Latin. She said knowing the names of things made them less scary."
"What's your favorite flower?"
"Orchids. Because they remind me of her. And because they're stubborn. They grow in places they shouldn't. They survive things that should kill them."
She was quiet for a moment. Then: "That's beautiful."
"Not as beautiful as you."
She laughed—a soft, broken sound. "You're ridiculous."
"I know."
We lay in silence for a while. I could feel her breathing, slow and even, her body relaxing against mine.
"Tell me something else," she said. "Something about you. Something no one else knows."
"I'm afraid of becoming my father."
"You won't."
"You don't know that."
"I know." She lifted her head and looked at me. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but there was a fierceness in them that made my breath catch. "You're not him, Gabriel. You're not capable of the things he's done. You're too good."
"I don't feel good."
