“I understand the choices a king makes for his people. I am Seraphina’s daughter. I was raised on stories of women who set down what they wanted in order to keep what mattered. I do not need an apology for any of it.”
She lifts her chin. The light moves across her face.
“What I need is time. The last time I saw you, my mother was dying in your arms. I want to know you as something other than the moment you saved her. As more than the king the courts see. As the man my grandmother loved.”
The garden has gone very still.
Lanthar’s hand lifts from his side. Stops at his hip. He doesn’t close the distance.
“She called me Aelric,” he says. Quietly. “It was my mother’s name for me. I gave it to her because it was the truest thing I could offer without telling her everything. I have not heard it spoken since she died.”
Mira’s breath catches.
“Then start there.”
Lanthar’s mouth does something that’s almost a smile.
He inclines his head.
“Not today,” Mira says. Quieter. “I came to look at you. To see if you were the same man who carried my mother through the Veil. You are. I need a wall between us before I can hear what comes next.”
“As you wish, Granddaughter.”
The pool between them ripples. No wind. No movement from either of them. The water responding to what just passed between a king and his granddaughter.
The ripple spreads outward, reaches the edges, and stills.
Mira turns and walks past me. Her eyes are dry but her hands are shaking. I follow her out. I don’t look back at Lanthar.
In the corridor, Mira walks for thirty seconds in silence. Then she stops. Puts her hand on the wall. The stone brightening where her skin meets it.
“He stood the same way,” she says. “When he came for her.”
I wait.
She takes her hand off the wall.
She walks. I walk with her.
The gold in the walls pulls back as we go. Dimmer here. Mira’s stride is steady but her breathing isn’t. She keeps her chin up and her hands at her sides and she doesn’t say another word until we reach her chamber.
At the door, she stops. Turns.
“Thank you for not saying anything in there.”
“There was nothing to say.”
She nods once. Goes in. The stone closes behind her.
I keep walking.
Syrenne steps out of a side passage I didn’t see open.
“Celeste.”
My name in her mouth sounds like an invitation to something dangerous.
“I was hoping we’d have a chance to speak without the formality.”
