Chapter 27
Leaves rustled above me, carrying the crisp scent of coming autumn.
The scent mingled with the waft of freshly baked bread from the nearby kitchen.
Mireth’s laughter rang out, bright and unrestrained, as she chased Eryx in uneven circles around the garden path, his delighted shrieks echoing through the air.
Four days.
Four days since Merrick had electrocuted a cave full of people and then told me Varyth was lying to me.
Four days since healers had whisked Varyth away before I could demand answers, their faces grim as they catalogued the blood still trickling from his ears, the way his legs had given out when he tried to stand.
I’d wanted to follow. Wanted to grab him by those perfect fucking shoulders and shake the truth loose until it spilled out like the blood he kept shedding to keep me alive.
But he’d looked so—
Broken wasn’t the right word. Varyth didn’t break. He fractured, splintered, went to pieces while somehow holding himself together through sheer force of will and spite.
So I’d let him go. Let the healers take him somewhere I couldn’t follow, and I’d swallowed down every question burning acid-hot in my throat.
Soon, I’d told myself. Soon I’d track him down and we’d have words. Specific ones.
But not yet.
Right now, I just needed to watch my children be children. Needed to pretend for five fucking minutes that the world wasn’t coming apart at the seams and I wasn’t somehow the thread holding it together.
Mireth’s laugh pierced the air—bright, uncomplicated joy—and the tightness in my chest loosened just slightly.
Then she paused mid-run, her dark eyes squinting at something ahead. She tugged on Eryx’s arm with the kind of insistence that suggested she’d found something interesting.
I followed her gaze.
There, tucked beneath the shade of a large golden elm at the far edge of the garden, stood Varyth.
My lungs stilled, suspended somewhere between caution and craving.
I wanted to stride over there right now. Demand answers. Make him explain why a male who’d just massacred his own soldiers had looked at me like I was walking into a trap I didn’t understand.
But the look on Varyth’s face stopped me cold.
Gods, he looked distant. Haunted. Like something had carved pieces out of him and forgotten to fill the spaces back in.
The smart thing would be to turn around. Give him space. Let him come to me when he was ready to talk, to explain, to tell me whatever truth he’d been hiding.
But I’d never been particularly smart about self-preservation.
And I was so fucking tired of smart.
I pushed myself up from the bench, my body moving before my brain could talk me out of it.
The grass was soft under my feet as I crossed the garden, each step feeling heavier than it should.
The children’s laughter faded into background noise as I approached, until all I could hear was the thundering of my own pulse and the question I wasn’t sure I wanted answered.
Varyth didn’t look up until I was close enough to touch.
“Isara.” My name came out rough, like he hadn’t used his voice in days.
For a moment, we just stood there. Him looking haunted. Me trying to figure out how to be gentle when everything in me wanted to rage.
“You look like shit,” I said finally, because gentle had never really been my strong suit.
His mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but adjacent to it. “Four days of healers poking at me will do that.”
“They let you out?”
“I left.” A pause. “They weren’t thrilled about it.”
Of course he had. Because Varyth couldn’t just rest, couldn’t just let himself heal. He had to be up and functional and ready for the next catastrophe.
The silence stretched between us, weighted with all the things I should say. All the questions I should ask. Why did Merrick look at you like you were a secret worth killing for? What aren’t you telling me? Why do I keep bleeding for truths you won’t give me?
But looking at him now—at the shadows carved under his eyes, the way he held himself like everything hurt—I couldn’t bring myself to strike first.
“Do you want to sit with me?”
Varyth studied me for a long moment, like he was trying to decode what I really meant. Then his expression fractured open just slightly, and he nodded.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I’d like that.”
We sat quietly for a few minutes, the only sounds filling the space around us the joyful laughter of the children and the rustling leaves in the gentle breeze.
Eryx bounded over to me, grinning as he held out a small, smooth stone he’d found, and I took it with a laugh, shifting enough that my knee brushed against Varyth’s.
Instinctively, I glanced over to apologise but stopped short. His eyes were closed, his expression relaxed, as though the brief contact offered him a moment of solace.
I hesitated, my heart thudding, as I inched closer, until my thigh settled firmly against his. My gaze lingered on his face, searching for any sign of discomfort. Instead, his expression remained tranquil, a gentle release of tension smoothing his features.
As I turned my attention back to the children, I noticed Mireth watching Varyth intently, a glimmer of determination sparking in her young face. With a small, proud grin, she lifted her hands, palms out, whispering under her breath.
A delicate shimmer formed between her fingers, water coalescing into the shape of a butterfly. The tiny creature flitted and danced in the air, catching the sunlight in gentle prisms as it floated toward Varyth.
His eyes opened as Mireth called his name, and he blinked in surprise as the butterfly hovered before him, wings beating in slow, mesmerising motions.
He glanced at Mireth, who beamed with pride, and gave her an approving nod. “Quite the talent.”
The lightness in his expression was so unfamiliar that I couldn’t help but smile myself. Varyth extended his hand, palm up, and the water butterfly alighted on his fingers, its translucent wings beating.
“How did you learn this?” he asked Mireth.
Mireth bounced on her toes. “Bryn showed me! She said water magic is tricky ‘cause it wants to flow away, but if you ask nicely, it’ll stay.”
Varyth’s lips quirked up. “Ask nicely?”
“Mmhmm.” Mireth nodded solemnly. “You have to be respectful, or the magic gets angry.”
A smile broke across Varyth’s face. No longer the untouchable High Lord, but someone kinder, gentler.
“That’s very wise,” he told Mireth, his voice holding a reverence I’d never heard before. “Magic should always be respected.”
Mireth beamed under his praise, her little chest puffing out.
The water butterfly fluttered its wings once more before dissolving into a fine mist that kissed our skin. Mireth giggled, delighted by the effect, then turned her attention back to her brother, who was now attempting to stack stones in a precarious tower.
I watched Varyth’s face as he observed my children. The mask he usually wore—all razor edges and controlled coldness—had slipped, revealing a vulnerability underneath. He looked almost wistful.
“Are you alright?” I kept the question gentle.
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he tipped his face up toward the sun, the golden light catching in his ashen hair. His wings, usually held precise, relaxed at his back, shifting with the breeze.
“Fine,” he said, too calmly.
A practiced answer. An automatic deflection.
I didn’t push for more. Instead, I pressed my leg a little more firmly against his in quiet reassurance. His wings shifted, not in readiness, but in relief. As though even they had stopped bracing. And then his hand moved, his knuckles brushing over my knee in response.
It was the barest touch. A silent acknowledgement.
Mireth’s laughter echoed again, but Varyth didn’t move. His eyes lingered on the space where the butterfly had vanished, as if mourning something he couldn’t name.
The children’s voices drifted around us, Eryx’s triumphant shout as his stone tower finally held, Mireth’s commentary about proper architectural foundations that she’d definitely overheard from someone else.
Varyth’s hand shifted. Not away—never away—but up, sliding from my knee with excruciating slowness, fingers trailing heat along my thigh until they found the curve of my waist. Then higher still, grazing my ribs before lifting entirely.
My breath caught. Held. Released in a way that probably gave away too much.
His hand settled in my hair.
Not gripping. Not demanding. Just there, fingers threading through the strands with a tenderness that made my throat tight. His thumb traced the shell of my ear, then the hinge of my jaw, like he was memorizing the shape of me through touch alone.
Gods.
I turned my head just slightly, enough to see him in profile. The sun carved shadows beneath his cheekbones, highlighted the exhaustion bruised under his eyes. His jaw was tight, like he was holding back. Words, maybe, or a truth that tasted like blood on the way out.
His fingers tightened fractionally in my hair. Not pulling. Just holding.
His shoulder pressed against mine, his weight shifting into me like I was someone he could rest against instead of another thing he had to hold up.
My chest did something complicated. Something that felt like breaking and mending at the same time.
My hand slid around his side, fingers skating over his ribs until they found his back.
I felt the hard planes of muscle, the warmth of his skin through the fabric of his shirt, the way he went perfectly still when my touch drifted lower. To the place where his spine met wings.
The reaction was immediate. A sharp inhale. His entire body going taut like I’d touched a live wire. The hand in my hair tightened, fingers curling against my scalp in a way that sent electricity racing down my spine.
His head tilted. Slowly. Until his temple rested against the side of my head.
I stopped breathing entirely.
I let my fingers trace that sacred space with reverent slowness, feeling where bone and wing and muscle all converged. His wings shivered. Actually shivered, the movement rippling through them like wind across water.
For a moment we weren’t High Lord and whatever the fuck I was, but just two people who’d bled too much and wanted softness for five gods-damn minutes.
I kept touching him. Kept tracing those sensitive places where wing met spine, feeling the way he trembled. The hand in my hair slid down to cup the back of my neck, holding me there with a desperate gentleness.
Neither of us spoke. Words would’ve shattered whatever fragile thing we were building here, would’ve forced us to name it and examine it and decide what the fuck we were doing.
So we just sat. Breathing in sync. The autumn sun warm on our skin and my children’s laughter painting joy over the jagged edges of everything else.
And for those few stolen moments, it was enough.