“I volunteered for this. I wanted to be the one to cure the plague, to find its cause. I wanted to travel to Junira at fifteen to get a headstart on my studies, even if it meant I was alone. I did this to myself.”
“Your family shouldn’t have let you take on the burden,” I said. “No one can carry that all on their own.”
His hand cupped my face, rubbing my cheek, before it fell away. “I didn’t realize until I got there, surrounded by piles of books, that even with my newfound purpose, I would feel so lonely. I spent so many days crying alone in my tower, trapped in a foreign land where all the other students both envied and hated me.”
My heart cracked. “Did you ever tell anyone?”
He sighed. “I tried to bring the matter up with my father, to explain I’d changed my mind, but how could I? What kind of selfish ruler abandons their pursuit of a much-needed cure?”
“Yes, but at what cost?”
“It’s no matter now. I’ve grown to enjoy it there enough. At least, enough to finish my treatise.”
“You shouldn’t have come back early,” I said, but my voice choked. It was a lie—I needed him here. Asha needed him here to be healthy again.
“I had to,” he said.
“You lost your chance to present at the conference, to get an offer for the Mage Council. You’ll have to start the year all over again—”
His hand squeezed mine, and my sentence trailed off at the look in his eyes.
“And I’d give it all up again for the chance to bring you even the smallest glimpse of joy.”
My words failed me, my heart fluttering.
“You have to know, you have to,” he said, bringing my hand to his lips. His mouth pressed against the back of it, soft and warm. Longing coursed through me. “You must know that you are worth repeating the year for. You’re worth the lost treatise. You’re worth attending every silly ball my brother throws, and you’re worth every pint of blood I gave to make a potion I wasn’t sure I’d ever finish.”
“Blood?” My heart thumped.
“It’s in the cure,” he whispered. “It took me so long because every variation, every new experiment demanded more. I gave and I gave…”
“Thomas,” I said, voice cracking.
“You’re not the only one with scars, Lyra.” His hand caressed the side of my face. “And you were worth every one. Not because I want you to love me. I just… I want to make someone as brilliant and caring as you happy, even for just a moment. That would be enough.”
“You’ve done more than that,” I murmured, my voice rough with emotion. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough for what you’ve done.”
He pressed a kiss, soft and sweet, to my forehead. I let my heart sink into its warmth.
When he pulled away, something earnest shone in his eyes.
His lips tilted up. “Tell me about your father, Lyra. I want to know all about him.”
“I think… I think he would’ve liked you.”
“As much as he disapproved of the monarchy?” he asked.
I nodded, my eyes growing watery. “There were some things he believed transcended our status. Kindness. Sacrifice.”
His hand tightened around my arm. I laid my head on his shoulder.
“He sounds like a wise man. What else did he say?”
We sat together on the bed for the briefest of hours as sunlight spilled through the window, and I told him. I shared the memories I’d forced myself to forget, the pain that still ached like a fresh cut. The porch my father and I had built together. The journal he left behind. The dreams he entrusted to me within its pages. The scattered crumbs across his blankets.
The tears finally came.
But I didn’t cry alone this time, hidden in a palace garden after scolding a prince.
