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“You don’t have to talk about her if you don’t want to,” she said.

“She was never focused on my father’s ambitions. Frankly, I think she turned a blind eye to it. I don’t think she wanted to see what he had become. What ambition had turned him into.

“But that changed when Mercer gave me the Aterna potion. It broke her. She was firmly against it. She told my father she was going to leave him. Once Mercer carved the incantation into my chest, she was determined to take me away—to Yharvan, where the enthrallment couldn’t be activated.”

He cast his eyes toward the setting sun. He didn’t use his spirit signifier to temper his emotions, so she could see the heartbreak in the swirls of silver.

Mira held his hand. “What happened?”

“We never made it to Yharvan. My father panicked that my mother was taking me away, and he went to Mercer for help. He wanted Mercer’s soldiers to stop us. But he made one terrible miscalculation. Mercer had no interest in saving my mother. It was—” He cleared his throat. “It was the seventh time Mercer used enthrallment on me.”

It took her a second to understand what he was saying. Mercer used Aidric to kill his own mother.

Tears stung her eyes and a knot formed in her throat. Her fingers tightened around his, and all the words of comfort she could think of seemed meaningless.

“My father, the pathetic coward, did nothing when I returned. He fell into a depression. Nearly drank himself to death. Shortly after, everyone was told the lie that my mother died of heart failure. The stress of the war was too much for her sensitive soul, they said.”

She leaned against his chest and wrapped her arms around him. “I’m so sorry.”

—

A few days later, she noticed tremors in his right hand. He was so good at hiding his pain, it was hard to discern unless she was really looking for it.

“I think you need to talk to Obryn again,” she said when they were sitting at a riverside restaurant.

“About what?”

“Your pain management.”

“It’s nothing. Really.”

“I see you. You’ve been taking more direweed. If you’d let me help you, I could properly diagnose you and try different potions, not just rely on one.”

He smiled and held up a hand in defeat. “Fine, I’ll talk to Obryn when we get back.”

Winter made way to spring. The air grew warmer.

She had picked up her potion project again, although she did her research mostly in the lab at the estate. She didn’t spend a whole lot of time on it because the urgency to remove her scar was gone.

“I still have to take you on a first date,” Aidric said with a smile one evening as they were in the kitchen, cooking dinner.

She laughed. “Don’t you think it’s a little late for a first date?”

“No,” he said, wrapping his arms around her waist while she was in the middle of casting a white spell to direct a knife to cut vegetables.

“We have been on tons of dates. We’ve been on vacations together.”

“Right, but I never took you on a first official date.” He kissed her neck.

“I didn’t peg you for a hopeless romantic.”

He smirked. “Just competitive. I want to make sure it’s the best first date you’ve ever had.”

—

The next evening, when she came back from dinner with Ella and Oliver, a card sat on the bed next to a black silk dress with a silver dragon winding down the back.

Darling,