“Good morning,” he said, warm as a hearth. He held up the parcel. “These heal everything.”
Honey and cinnamon reached me first. My mouth watered. Pastries—my favorite. For a heartbeat, I was at the old tableagain, Aeryn licking sugar from his fingers while Hayat pretended not to want the last bite—only to take it anyway when I offered.
“Thank you,” I said softly. “You didn’t have to.”
“I know.” His smile tilted. “I wanted to.”
I unwrapped one and slid it to the side. For Aeryn. My throat tightened. The pastry suddenly felt too sweet for what I had to say.
“Hayat…” I smoothed the paper with my thumb, buying one more breath. The pastry sat between us—warm, sweet, innocent of the thing about to leave my mouth.
My stomach knotted.
“I’m leaving.”
Every imagined version of this moment ended with him trying to stop me, and I wasn’t sure I could bear that. I needed him steady. I needed him safe. If he saw the resolve in me too clearly, he’d mistake it for permission, and he’d try to take this burden for himself—and I couldn’t let him carry what was mine to break under.
The air shifted. His easy smile faltered. “Leaving where?”
“Nyxarra.”
The word hung there, heavy as the tide before a storm. Even saying it felt like testing fate.
“You know what they say about that realm,” Hayat said, the old warning sliding from his mouth the same way it had from Colette’s. “It keeps what it loves—devours the rest.”
I drew a breath. “I know the risk. But the Etherblooms grow there, and they’re the only thing that might help him. I can’t just sit here and watch him fade.”
Fear and frustration flickered across his face. He looked away, jaw tightening, then back at me.
“Okay.” His jaw set. “Then I’m coming with you.”
“You won’t.” The words came out sharper than I meant. Isteadied them. “I need you with Aeryn. He listens to you. You’re the only person I trust besides Colette, and I can’t ask this of her.”
“You intend to go alone?” The question came rough. “At least let me hire a trader—someone who knows the route.”
“No.” My pulse quickened, but I didn’t look away. “You know the kind of men who run those roads. I won’t put myself in their hands.” I had studied the maps until the ink blurred. I’d go whether anyone believed I could or not.
“Aurelia, that’s—” He stopped. “It’s dangerous.”
“I know,” I whispered. Saying it aloud made it less a plea and more a plan. “If I do nothing, I lose him anyway. He’s slipping, Hayat. Last night—” my voice snagged. “—he almost lost himself. I won’t watch that happen again.”
They called Aeryn tainted—necrotic, as if a mind could spoil like fruit. Maybe they weren’t wrong. Hayat dragged a hand through his hair. “Then let me go with you. If you won’t listen to reason, let me keep you alive.”
His voice thinned at the end—raw, unfamiliar. “Better me than you, Elli. Better I come back in pieces than you don’t come back at all. Aeryn needs you more than he’ll ever need me.”
I bit the inside of my cheek until the ache cleared my head. “Please. Stay with him. Promise me.”
I saw the war in his eyes—the part of him that wanted to bar the door with his body, and the part that knew he couldn’t take this choice from me without breaking something sacred between us. Hayat didn’t relent easily. When he did, it was because he realized forcing me would be its own kind of loss. He had already imagined every version of losing me and couldn’t stomach the one where I walked away thinking he hadn’t tried.
I needed him here. When the darkness pressed close, Aeryn listened to Hayat in ways he didn’t listen to anyone—sometimes not even me. If I dragged Hayat into Nyxarra, I’d be stealing theone steady thing left in Aeryn’s life. This part had to be mine. He could keep Aeryn breathing. I could find what might save him.
The fight in his shoulders eased. “At least let me come into town for supplies. I’ll see you off. Make sure you have what you need.”
“That’s fair.” Relief hit. I didn’t have room for another argument. “I’ll try to get Aeryn to come. Fresh air might help.”
As if summoned, Aeryn padded in, curls tangled, eyes rimmed red. He was thinner than the last time I’d measured him by his sleeve.
I slid the pastry between us and tried to make my voice light. “We’re going to town. Come with us.”