Chapter Twelve
Stay
For a night, she was in his arms. And he was no longer his own.
Rain pattered steady against the canvas, running in silver threads along the ditches outside her tent.
Viktor slipped in and found Gabriel and Evander cross-legged on the rug, dice tumbling between them, voices low.
“…man was already gray when I was born,” Evander was saying. “I remember almost nothing of him.”
Gabriel flicked a die across the board.
“Mine wasn’t gray—just stubborn. Never spoke a word about the Bloodforge. Hid the truth of it like it might vanish if he didn’t name it.”
Viktor lowered beside them, resting an arm across his knee.
“Your father never talked about it at all?”
Gabriel gave a low, humorless laugh.
“No. And I learned quick not to ask.”
He shifted on the carpet.
“After the Bloodforge, he kept moving. Wouldn’t stay anywhere long.”
He tossed the dice once more.
“Then one day he simply decided to settle down.”
Evander’s grin sharpened, a glint of mischief in his eyes.
“Wonder what changed his mind.”
Viktor’s mouth curved as he glanced between them.
“I’d say it was Gabriel’s six-foot Draekenran mother.”
Evander burst out laughing.
Gabriel did not.
The curtain at the back of the room stirred.
Amerei stepped out, wrapped in the satin robe Viktor had glimpsed the night before. Water clung to her braid like threads of silver, the familiar scent of lavender lingering on her robe. He found himself stilling, breathing her in without conscious thought.
She moved with quiet grace to the rug and folded to sit across from him, the hem of her robe brushing his knee as she settled.
Evander broke the silence.
“What about your father, Viktor?”
He dragged his eyes from her.
“He worked the docks of Westport all his life,” he said. “Taught me every knot there is, every way to bind a ship. But this—”
He lifted his hand. Flame flickered across his fingers, light catching in Amerei’s eyes before he closed his fist.
The hush that followed felt heavier than canvas walls could hold.
He held her gaze for a beat too long—long enough to know he would answer whatever she asked.
Her voice softened the air.
“How long have you and Captain Feindoran known each other?”
Viktor huffed a laugh, eyes flicking once to Gabriel.
“We met at enlistment,” he said. “Didn’t cause much trouble until captain’s school in Irongate. Aerdania sends soldiers to the elves for training now. Used to be Casqadia.” His voice dropped to a murmur. “Too much has changed.”
Evander shifted, turning to Gabriel.
“Your father’s gone too, isn’t he?”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“A little over a year. Left me in charge of my mother and sisters in Vykenra.”
His mouth lifted at the corner.
“Dask, that city. By some miracle the nobility let Viktor come with me to the funeral—since he’d finally scraped his way to Captain.”
“Finally?” Viktor arched a brow. “We were the youngest in our class.”
“No,” Gabriel smirked faintly. “I was the youngest. You’re half a year older.”
Laughter faded. Canvas creaked. The air itself seemed to settle into something steadier—almost solemn.
Gabriel leaned back, voice dropping.
“How did I not know my father was Ruakite?”
He threw out a hand.
“Dask, Viktor—how did I not know you were?”
“I didn’t know myself,” Viktor admitted.
His gaze slid—unbidden—to Amerei, as if the word itself bound him to her.
Evander clapped his hands suddenly, cutting the tension.
“We need something.”
He strode to the chest, dragged out a bottle, and grinned.
“Halyon wine, anyone?”
Gabriel shot Viktor a sidelong look, sly as a fox.
“Permission, Captain?”
“One glass,” Viktor relented. “I won’t risk waking up in your tent again.”
Evander whooped, already pouring heavy measures. Amerei’s scandalized laughter warmed Viktor’s chest.
Time stretched, the wine flowing freer at Gabriel and Evander’s end of the rug. Their laughter grew louder, their cheeks redder.
Meanwhile, Viktor had drawn a map close between him and Amerei, achingly aware of how easily he’d made space for her. His calloused finger traced the jagged offshore cliffs of the Bloodforge.
“Here,” he murmured, “the beasts came up through the chasms—geysers, cyclones. War at sea.”
Amerei leaned in, her braid brushing his shoulder as she pointed to a soft circle of ink.
“And here—Amethyst. My grandparents, a lady of the elven court and a human Ruakite, were wed beneath those towers.”
She looked up.
“Their vow ended the war.”
Candlelight caught in her eyes, and Viktor let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
The moment threatened to linger between them—
until Evander broke it with a shout.
“Captain Seraphim! You’ve run across half the realm—”
He tipped his head, grin wicked.
“Tell us,” he chirped, “where are the most beautiful women to be found?”
Heat surged up Viktor’s neck. His tongue caught, frozen, with Amerei’s nearness burning beside him.
Gabriel smirked, leaning back.
“Come now. Settle it for us—are human women truly superior to she-elves?”
Viktor nearly choked on air.
Amerei’s eyes sparkled, lips curving at his torment.
Gabriel rolled his eyes, snatched up a hunk of bread, and tossed it at Viktor’s chest.
“Don’t bother. He only cares how well she cooks. Have you seen him? He never stops eating.”
Evander crowed. “He runs like a horse, Gabriel.”
“And he eats like one,” Gabriel finished, grinning wide.
Viktor flicked the bread back at him, deadpan.
“That’s rich, coming from an elf the size of a cave troll.”
Amerei laughed outright then—soft and unguarded.
Viktor’s chest ached, half agony, half wonder.
Dask, if only she knew what that sound does to me. I’d run myself to ash just to hear it again.
Lightning cracked across the canvas, sharp enough to rattle the dice.
Evander pushed to his feet, peering out at the storm before catching sight of a patrol trudging in through the rain. He sank back down and reached for the wine.
Gabriel leaned close, voice stealth as shadow.
“Do you love her?”
Evander nearly choked, sloshing his cup. Color burned his face as he glanced once toward Amerei.
“More than she’ll ever know,” he said quietly.
Then, braver:
“And that’s the way of it.”
Gabriel lifted his cup in a toast, grin quick and merciless.
Amerei looked up from the map, eyes curious.
“What are we toasting?”
Evander went rigid.
But Gabriel answered smoothly, cup raised high.
“To we who were mere mortals when we woke this morning.”
The toast rang soft against the rain.
Cups clinked. Wine spilled.
Time slipped by, the storm settling into steady rhythm.
Evander slumped sideways on the rug, already lost to sleep. Gabriel soon followed, sprawled with his arm across the board.
Amerei leaned back against her cot, then bent to blow out the candle.
Viktor rose, every muscle taut with the intent to leave—
knowing damned well that if she asked him not to, he wouldn’t.
Darkness fell—soft and secret—wrapping them in silence.
Her hand caught his arm.
A whisper—barely breath:
“Stay.”
His heart jolted hard enough to hurt. The word stole the strength from his knees. He sank beside her, pulse hammering.
She should have sent him away. A princess did not beg a soldier to stay—but her hand refused to let go.
She shifted, tentative, the linen rustling softly beneath them, then let her head rest against his chest.
He froze—terrified that even the rise and fall of his breath might break the spell.
Her fingers curled into the collar of his tunic. The faint scent of rain lingered in her hair. The world narrowed to that single weight, that fragile trust.
His arm hovered before surrendering, sliding around her shoulders—a touch light as a vow. The satin of her robe was cool beneath his palm, warming slowly as she settled closer.
Neither of them moved.
Neither dared.
Tomorrow she would be a princess again, and he—only a soldier.
For tonight, she was in his arms.
Her hair brushed his jaw as she breathed, steady and unguarded.
Viktor closed his eyes, committing the feel of her to memory as if it might be taken from him at dawn.
His lips trembled, reckless with longing.
The words slipped into the dark, almost soundless—too soft for her to hear:
“I’m in love. I’m in love with the Princess of Casqadia.”