Gods. After everything, she still asks like betrayal might only be delayed instead of gone.
I turn fully toward her then, one hand resting lightly against the railing beside her.
“I love you,” I say quietly.
The wind moves through the space around us, cool against skin still marked by battle, by sleepless nights, by choices that reshaped the world around us.
Aeryn studies my face for a long moment like she’s searching for the place where I might hide an angle even now.
She won’t find one.
Finally her expression softens into something small and real enough to undo me completely.
“I know,” she says.
Then, after a pause:
“I love you too.”
I touch her face gently, thumb brushing beneath her cheekbone while the last light fades across the valley below us. She leans into it without hesitation now.
Together we look back toward the fortress, toward the maps waiting inside, toward the war still moving beneath our hands.
Not ruled by either of us alone. Built beside each other. And when Aeryn reaches for my hand this time, I take it without trying to lead.
Beside her. Exactly where I choose to be.