Chapter 61
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
LEINA
The full moon shines through the open window, casting its light onto the simple sandstone floor. I roll up to sit in my plush hammock, my legs swung over the side, trying to get my balance before I step from the swaying bed. My head is heavy with grief.
Levvi. Alden.
They didn’t just die. They were murdered.
I drag in a breath, but it’s ragged and doesn’t fill my lungs.
This grief isn’t new—they’ve been dead for a long time—but it is sharper.
I don’t even remember getting back to this room.
I don’t remember anything except Aruveth’s bemused voice explaining the Collection.
I rub the edges of the simple, soft robe someone draped over me and then shrug into it for warmth.
I lower my toes to the floor, and only when I’m sure I won’t collapse do I push off the hammock, my muscles straining with the effort. Everything in me feels spent—my limbs too heavy, my thoughts moving through molasses.
Barefoot, I make my way to the window. The sandstone is gritty and rough, so different from the smooth granite of the Synod or the soft wood floor of my family’s cottage.
The waterfall outside makes a constant, deafening sound.
So unlike the crashing of the ocean waves against the cliffs of the Synod or the quiet gurgling of the River Elris in the Weeping Forest. There’s something sweet on the air, a complex combination of scents from the flowering vines that cover every tree and every building.
A world away from the earthier smells of salt or wheat.
Still, it’s these things, these solid, real things, even if they are unfamiliar, that help clear my mind. That calm my frayed nerves. I look down from the moon-lit window. I’m five stories up, but the garden below is too inviting to ignore. I’ll go for a walk.
But when I swing open my door, I trip on a hulking form sleeping against the frame, and then there’s the sound of a sword swishing out from its sheath as the blockade made of black leather jumps to his feet and swivels.
“Sweet Serephelle,” Ryot mutters, rubbing a hand over gritty eyes. That’s his signature “ I’m stressed as hells and don’t know what to do ” move.
I cross my arms over my chest. That’s my signature move, too—but this time, it’s not about stress. It’s about fury. The kind I’ve been pushing down since I was a little girl.
I’m angry . And not the clean, righteous kind. The ugly kind.
The kind that wants to burn it all to the fucking ground—Faraengard, the Synod, the mother fucking gods. The kind that wants power, and not only to fix things. Not just to make the world a better place, not to find peace or to rebuild.
The power to make them pay .
I’m angry that Ryot gets to walk around in that black chainmail—that might’ve been mined by my own dead brother—and command respect and wield power in it. A kind of power he was born knowing and that I can’t fathom. Even now.
I’m angry that he can stand beside Rissa, wrap his arms around her, comfort her, like she’s not responsible. Like she’s not part of the royalty that’s made a ruin of my life.
And I’m angry because I want to reach for him anyway, to let him hold me and whisper to me that it will be alright. I hate that part of me a little, because I shouldn’t want comfort from someone who’s born of the same system that broke me. But I do. Gods, I do.
So, I cross my arms and I stand my ground and I try to keep it together.
The truth is, though, I’m not sure I can.
He slept outside my door.
“You scared me,” he says quietly.
“I scared you?” I whisper back. “You’re the one that pulled a sword on me.”
He shoves the weapon into the sheath at his back and takes a step away from me, into the hallway. He doesn’t meet my eyes.
“Apologies,” he says. Very formal. Very distant.
And that just makes me even madder. He can’t be the one to walk away from me—not after all of this. Not after I’ve been gutted by the truth, left to drown in grief. I take a step forward, crowding him.
“Did you know?”
His eyes snap to mine. “How could you even ask that?”
I shake my head immediately, but the words still burn on my tongue. “I don’t know. I don’t. I just—” I drag in a breath. “I know you didn’t, you couldn’t. I?—”
A clatter of noise interrupts, and Ryot and I both turn to see one of the Aishan men stumble from his quarters in a sleepy daze. He heads straight for the washroom toward the end of the hall.
I step back into my room, and gesture Ryot inside. I don’t want to kill him in the hallway. “Come inside,” I tell him.
He stays firmly on the other side of the door. “I don’t know if I should. Do you want me to go wake up Nyrica? So you’ll have a friend?—”
“I don’t have a bone to pick with Nyrica,” I snap at him.
He hesitates at the threshold.
“Get. In. Side.” I growl at him, and I think the aggression in my voice takes us both a little by surprise. He’s normally the growly one.
He crosses the threshold, and I slam the door closed with more force than necessary. It feels good, so I keep going.
I spin, facing him.
“What’s going on with you and Rissa?”
The look on his face is pure confusion.
“What do you mean?” He asks. “She came to Selencia with me, and we rode here together.”
I laugh, but it’s brittle and sharp. "Yeah. I noticed. She’s been glued to your side.”
He frowns, that confusion still furrowing his brow. “She’s my?—”
“Your what?” I cut in, voice rising. “Your past? The one who actually belongs in your world?”
Anger sparks in those beautiful, storm-wracked eyes.
He takes two measured steps forward until there’s barely space for breath between us.
“ No one belongs in my world, Leina,” his voice low and wrecked.
“Or have you forgotten the vows we take? We bleed for gods who demand everything. We swear to serve until there’s nothing left of us … ”
He’s vibrating now, but I don’t think it’s with rage. I think it’s with restraint . He lifts a hand, slowly, as if he’s afraid I’ll flinch or draw away and he’s giving me that chance. And maybe I should. Maybe I should run from this man, a weapon wrapped in flesh. But I don’t.
Not when he cups my cheek with calloused fingers like I’m something sacred. Not when he lowers his forehead to mine with a kind of aching gentleness that doesn’t belong to warriors.
His eyes are desperate when they search for mine.
“But fuck the gods,” he whispers. “Fuck the Synod. Fuck the throne and every cursed thing that’s come from it.”
His thumb brushes under my eye. I hadn’t realized I was crying.
“You don’t belong in my world. Leina, you are my world.”
My breath catches, and a sob escapes. My fingers tighten in the links of his chainmail, and I lower my head to his chest. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. He simply lets me break.
“I was surviving fine without you,” I finally get out between sobs. His arms wrap around me, holding me tighter even as I fall apart.
“That’s because you’re the strongest person I know,” he says, voice rough against my hair.
It’s meant to comfort, to lift me up. But it breaks something in me instead.
I cry harder. No more walls, no more masks.
Only the ugly, aching truth spilling out in heaving sobs I can’t hold back anymore.
When this round of grief passes—this time for the little girl who shouldn’t have had to be strong—and I can speak again, I pull back so I can see him.
“I’m so tired of surviving,” I whisper. “And I’m scared—gods, I’m scared—because the moment I stop fighting, I don’t know who I’ll be underneath it all.”
He grips my face gently, but his eyes blaze with violence.
“Then let’s find out,” he murmurs. “Let’s find out who you are when you’re not surviving.
I’ve spoken with Rissa and with the Elder, and they both agree King Agis needs to be deposed.
We accomplished what we needed to do here.
Tomorrow, we fly back to Edessa and free your people, Leina. ”
My heart stutters— stutters —at the hope shining so brightly in his eyes. The moonlight makes him look almost soft.
I step into him, and cup his cheek. I rub my fingers on the shredwhip scar that cuts down the side of his face. “Do something for me?” I ask him.
His answer is immediate. “Anything.”
Gods, I love him . I love this man.
And that scares me more than death demons or draegoths.
I smile, barely. “Drop your shields.”
The words linger between us, and then, without hesitation, he does. There’s a sudden release of pressure, like a breath exhaled all at once. His barrier that holds enemy forces at bay and wraps around his own mind constantly, collapses. And there he is.
Not the warrior. Not the protector. Him.
And he’s wrecked.
His grief spills out first. It coils through him like smoke—thin, choking, endless. Guilt gnaws at him from the inside out, and shame has etched into his bones.
But there’s more.
A wild protectiveness hovers beneath the surface. Anxiety tangles with purpose. And fear and fury root through it all.
And then … there’s something else. Something that flares so bright and bold I nearly flinch from it. It’s want. No, not want. Love . Raw, relentless, unspoken love. It pulses in him, terrifying and vast, the kind of feeling that makes gods and mortals alike crumble.
And it’s too much. Too real. Too tender for someone like me who’s still learning not to flinch at kindness. I look away from it. Not because I don’t want it—but because I do.
Maybe it’s not the moonlight making him soft. Maybe it’s me.
I still grieve for Levvi. For Alden. I always will. Some things never stop aching. But tonight isn’t for grief or ghosts. Tonight is for something else—something that dares to hope we might still have a future, even after everything.
I close my eyes and sink into myself.
I picture the familiar shield I started building before I ever met him. My strength. My solitude. My survival. But what I feel now doesn’t belong in the dark. It doesn’t need hiding. So, I part the dark Veil wrapped tightly around my mind.
No shields. No walls. Nothing between us except for everything we are, laid bare.
I pour it out into him—every broken, messy thing inside me. The ugly. The aching. The beautiful. Anxiety. Fear. Shame. Insecurity. Want. Hope. Longing. Gratitude. Trust.
And then, at the center of it all— love.
He doesn’t hesitate. His arms wrap around me in one desperate motion and he crushes me against him, like he needs my heartbeat to steady his own. He buries his face in my hair and breathes me in like it’s the only thing keeping him grounded.
Then he raises that shield again, not between us, but around us like a sanctuary. The rush of the waterfall, the rustle of night, even the silver moonlight—all of it goes still.
We are alone with the beating of our hearts. The smell of cinnamon and lavender. The heat of his arms. The breath we share.
Just us.
“I don’t deserve you,” he whispers into the hush, and there’s real terror in his voice.
I don’t pull away, nor do I let him retreat.
“My mother used to say that love isn’t a prize you win for being perfect or a currency traded for good behavior,” I say.
His arms tighten around me.
“It’s messy. Imperfect. Deeply human. It’s about seeing someone—not as they should be, but as they are—and choosing them anyway.”
“I choose you, Leina Haverlyn,” he tells me.
And that one sentence tells me everything.
I crash my lips against his, and he pushes me back against the rough sandstone wall.
I like it. I like knowing I’ll be marked tomorrow.
Marked by him. I climb him, trying to get closer and closer, still.
I hop up, wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. I smile against his lips.
“Why do we always end up like this?” I ask him.
He draws back, laughing breathlessly. “Because you’re an enchantress,” he murmurs.
He softens the edges of his shield, enough to let the world back in. A sliver of moonlight spills into our bubble of stillness, brushing silver across his face, catching in his lashes. The distant rush of the waterfall hums.
And in that hush between heartbeats, he lowers his lips back to mine.
It’s not a desperate kiss this time, not teeth and fire and hunger like I want.
No, this is something deeper. A vow made flesh.
A kiss that says I see you . That promises I’ll stand between you and the fires of hell . That vows you’re everything.
I try to press harder, to turn it into something fierce and consuming because softness scares me in a way battle never has. But he won’t let me. The way he kisses me back—gods, it’s a sacrament. An aching confession without a single word.
Just as the ache blooms into something full and breaking, the world intrudes.
From a great distance, the sound of trumpets slices through the quiet.