His head turned slightly, not quite meeting my gaze. The firelight made his face unreadable.
I took a breath. “Let me carry it,” I said, the words trembling even as I forced them steady. “If you can’t stay for yourself, then stay for me. I’ll bear it. I’ll drag it behind me if I have to. Because Ilove you. And if you can’t believe that your life matters, then let me be selfish enough to believe it for you.”
Tears blurred my vision. He didn’t look at me, but his breath hitched, a single sound that felt like both apology and surrender.
“You matter, Aeryn. You’re not just surviving. You’re enduring. And even when you feel like there’s nothing left, you’re still here. That is a kind of strength that no soldier, no goddess, no one can ever claim.”
He stared.
“And maybe one day,” I whispered, “you’ll find a reason within yourself. But until then, let me be the one who needs you. Let me be selfish, Aeryn. For both of us.”
His chin quivered. A tear slipped free.
“I don’t want to feel like this anymore,” he choked.
“I know,” I whispered, pulling him into my arms. “You’re not alone. I’ll find a way to stop this. I don’t care if I have to climb into Hell and rip the answer out with my teeth.”
The words left me before I could think them.
For days, I’d been circling the same truth—the one I didn’t want to name, only feel closing in around me: Aeryn was dying.
The herbs wouldn’t work. Colette’s warnings had been mercy, not fear. Synnex had taught its people to survive by pretending not to see the dying.
And gods, I was so tired of watching him fade by inches while pretending there was still time. My throat burned. My heart did too—not with hope, but with something harsher.
Love, when it’s real, is a kind of violence. It devours reason first. Then it whispersmove.
I’d sworn I would never kneel to the gods who took everything from us. But for him, I would crawl through their fire. I would trade anything—blood, faith, even myself—if it meant keeping him breathing one more day.
The thought struck like a blade. I didn’t fight it.
The moment fractured. And I knew, as his stare fixed on me, that I had already chosen.
2
Aurelia
By morning,my eyes still burned. This was my third dawn without sleep. A hundred dust motes drifted through the pale sunbeam that slipped between my makeshift curtains, turning in slow circles like they belonged to a gentler world. I lay still, hands folded over my stomach, letting the quiet press against me until it hurt.
The house held its breath. Quiet was rare here. Rare anywhere in Synnex.
I tried to let it soothe me. It didn’t. It only woke the part of me that never stilled, the part that whispered,Don’t stop. Not when he needs you.That voice had been with me since the fire, since the first night Aeryn cried himself hoarse, and I’d promised him I’d never let the world take anything else from us. I’d been ten—too young to make a promise that large.
Steady. That was my job. When everything tilted, I reached for the pieces. My gaze drifted to the rolled map on the night table, its edges softened from being opened and shut too many times. Theinked line to Nyxarra ran like a vein into the dark beyond the city’s reach.
My fingers found the scar at my jaw, traced it once, then dropped. The memory of dice at the hearth flickered. Aeryn bluffing badly and laughing. Hayat groaning like he’d been robbed. For a heartbeat, the memory felt brighter than the moment I was standing in—until it slid away and left only the ache of what Aeryn was becoming.
I sat at the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, and flexed my hands until they steadied. My shoulders ached from holding too much, so I rolled them back, forcing a breath past the tightness in my chest. I smoothed my tunic, pressed color into my cheeks, practiced the curve of a neutral smile against the air. Small rituals—proof that I could still move, still choose.
Then I stood. The floor was cold against my feet as I crossed to the basin. Water glimmered in the copper bowl. I splashed my face until the sting cleared my eyes—red-rimmed but stubborn enough to meet their own reflection without flinching.
If I didn’t move soon, someone else would choose for me.
I pulled on a forest-green tunic and brown leathers, twisted my curls into a high knot, and dragged a few strands loose to soften what couldn’t be softened. Every hour I waited, I felt him slipping further. I refused to let that be the story.
I stepped into the kitchen.
A knock sounded at the front door—one rap, then another. The hinge creaked as Hayat let himself in, frost on his cloak and a small wrapped bundle in his hands.