Chapter 11 Valas
VALAS
It takes me a good ten minutes to pull myself together enough to leave the study.
Keira's taste still lingers on my tongue—sweet and salt and something uniquely her.
Her scent has burrowed into my lungs, clinging to every breath I take.
Even after I've splashed cold water on my face, changed my shirt, tried to compose myself into something resembling the respected healer I'm supposed to be, I can still feel her everywhere.
The ghost of her thighs trembling around my head. The broken sounds she made when she came apart. The way she looked at me after, dazed and satisfied and almost reverent.
I want more. Want to drag her to my bed and make her scream with just my mouth, no hands, just tongue and lips until she's hoarse and wrung out. Want to discover every other way I can unravel her, catalog each gasp and whimper.
But she'd needed to go to Amisra. Dinner and bath time and bedtime stories, all the evening rituals that anchor the little bird's world. So I'd helped her dress, fingers fumbling at laces for the first time in a decade, and watched her slip from my suite on unsteady legs.
The self-satisfied male part of me had preened at that. At the visible evidence of what I'd done to her.
Now I'm pacing my temporary room like a caged predator, debating whether I'll go to her later. Knock softly on her door after Amisra's asleep, see if she'll let me in. See if she wants more, or if that was enough for tonight.
See if she'll let me worship her properly, spread across clean sheets instead of cluttered parchment.
First, though, I need to check on Daryn.
The thought sobers me faster than ice water. I run a hand through my hair, retying the leather at my nape, and force myself to focus. My friend needs me. Has needed me for months, even if I've been too stubborn to admit I can't fix this.
His door is cracked when I reach it, golden lamplight spilling into the darkened hallway. I knock softly before pushing inside.
"Come to gloat about finally getting somewhere with my nanny?" Daryn's voice is weaker than it was even this morning, but the humor threading through it is pure him.
I pause in the doorway. "How did you—"
"Please." He's propped against pillows, skin almost translucent in the lamplight. The hollows beneath his silver-blue eyes have deepened, shadows pooling there like bruises. "I can smell her scent on you. Either you finally made a move or you've taken up rolling in her laundry."
Heat crawls up my neck. "I didn't—we didn't—" I clear my throat. "Nothing like that."
"But something." He gestures weakly to the chair beside his bed. "Sit. Tell me everything or I'll die of curiosity before this illness finishes me off."
The joke lands wrong, humor curdling in my stomach. Because looking at him now—really looking, not through the desperate lens of a healer searching for solutions—I can see how close he is to the edge.
How little time we have left.
I sink into the chair, suddenly exhausted. "We kissed. And I..." The words stick. "She let me taste her." I run a hand over my face. "Fuck, I've never been so desperate for someone like I am with her."
"She finally let you in." Daryn's laugh is genuine, if breathless. "Gods, Val. No wonder you look like you've been blessed by the Mother herself."
"It wasn't—" I scrub a hand over my face. "I wanted to keep going. Wanted everything. But she needed to tend to Amisra and I needed to..." What? Pull myself together? Remember how to be a person instead of a creature of pure want?
"You needed to come see your dying friend." No humor now, just quiet acceptance.
The word—dying—hits like a blade between my ribs. "Don't."
"Why not?" He shifts against the pillows, wincing. "We both know it's true. Have known for months."
"I'm still looking for—"
"Stop." Gentle but firm. "Val, please. Just stop."
I open my mouth to argue, to list the three new remedies I'm researching, the texts I've ordered from Orthani. But the look on his face silences me.
He's exhausted. Not just physically, though the illness is devouring him from the inside out. He's tired of fighting, of pretending, of watching me scramble for solutions that don't exist.
"I've been writing my will." He gestures to the desk in the corner, where parchment lies scattered. Fresh ink gleams in the lamplight. "Finally getting my affairs in order."
My throat closes. "Daryn—"
"Someone needs to care for Amisra when I'm gone." His voice cracks on her name. "Someone who'll love her like I do. Protect her. Make sure she grows up knowing she's cherished."
"Of course I'll—"
"Not just you." He fixes me with those fading eyes, and I see the calculation there. The planning. "Keira too. She loves my daughter like her own already. I want her to stay. Want you to make sure she stays."
Understanding crashes over me. "You've been pushing us together."
"Obviously." A ghost of his old grin. "You think I'm blind? You've been pining after her since the moment she walked through my door, and she's been fighting herself just as hard. Someone had to give you both permission."
"So you played matchmaker while dying." The words come out sharper than I intend, edged with something that might be anger or grief or both.
"I played father." Correction, soft but unyielding. "Because my daughter deserves parents who love each other, who'll build a life together. Not just a guardian and a nanny coexisting out of obligation."
The presumption of it should irritate me. The manipulation, the scheming. But looking at him now—silver hair dull against white pillows, chest rising and falling with labored breaths—I can only feel the weight of what he's asking.
What he's trusting me with.
"You really think you're that close?" My voice breaks on the question.
"I know I am." No hesitation. "Weeks, maybe. A month if the Mother's feeling generous."
A month. Four weeks. Thirty days.
Not enough time. Will never be enough time.
"I can't—" The words jam in my throat. "Daryn, you're my best friend. My brother. I can't just—"
"Yes, you can." He reaches out, hand trembling, and I clasp it between both of mine. His fingers are cold, grip weak. "You can because you have to. Because Amisra needs you whole, not shattered by grief. And you can't be whole if you're still fighting the inevitable."
Tears burn behind my eyes. I blink them back viciously, refusing to let them fall. "This isn't fair."
"No." Agreement, simple and devastating. "It's not. But very little in this life is fair, and you know that better than most."
He's right. Of course he's right. I've seen enough death, enough suffering, to know the universe doesn't give a fuck about fair.
But this is different. This is Daryn.
"Promise me." His grip tightens fractionally. "Promise you'll take care of them. Both of them. That you'll love Keira the way she deserves and raise Amisra to know her father wasn't a coward."
"You're not—"
"Promise me, Val."
The words feel like shackles and freedom all at once. A burden I'll carry for the rest of my life, and the greatest honor he could give me.
"I promise." My voice sounds wrecked even to my own ears. "I'll protect them. Love them. Keep them safe."
"Good." He sags back against the pillows, relief washing over his face. "Good. Now stop looking so tragic and tell me she's not just something you are working out of your system. Tell me it was life-changing."
A laugh punches out of me, half-sob. "You're dying and you want to discuss—"
"I'm dying, which means I can ask whatever I want." That grin again, weaker but still there. "Besides, I've been living vicariously through you for months. Least you can do is throw me some details."
So I do. I tell him about the study, about how she'd finally stopped running. About the sounds she made and the way she fell apart and how I'd wanted to keep going until dawn.
He listens with evident enjoyment, making commentary that's equal parts crude and insightful. Laughing when I describe her stubborn refusal to give in easily, nodding knowingly when I admit how badly I want more.
"You really want her." Not a question.
"Yes." No point denying it. Not to him, not now. "I think I have since the beginning."
"I know." Smug satisfaction. "Why do you think I kept pushing?"
"Meddling bastard."
"Always." He yawns, exhaustion pulling at his features. "Stay?"
"Of course."
I settle deeper into the chair, still holding his hand, and we talk. Not about illness or death or futures cut short. Just... talk. Like we have for years.
He tells me about the first time he held Amisra, how terrified he'd been that he'd break something so small and perfect. I tell him about the disaster with the merchant's son last month, the one who'd insisted his rash was demon-cursed until I'd explained what poison ivy looked like.
We reminisce about training days, about the instructor who'd nearly expelled us both for that prank with the animated training dummy. About the first time Daryn had gotten properly drunk on amerinth and tried to fight a statue.
Hours slip past. The lamp burns lower, shadows growing long across the walls. His voice gets softer, words coming slower, but he keeps talking. Keeps laughing.
And I realize with horrible clarity that this is it.
This is goodbye.
Not tonight—he's not that close to the edge yet. But this moment, this conversation, this easy companionship we've shared for decades. It's ending. The next time we sit together like this, he'll be weaker. The time after that, weaker still.
Until one day there won't be a next time.
"Val?" His voice is barely a whisper now, eyes drifting closed. "Thank you. For everything. For trying so hard."
"I wish I could've—"
"I know." His hand squeezes mine one last time. "But this isn't a failure. You gave me time. Gave me months I wouldn't have had otherwise. Months to prepare, to make plans. To see you fall for someone worthy of you."
The tears come now, silent and unstoppable. I let them fall, no longer caring about composure.
"Sleep." I keep my voice steady through sheer force of will. "I'll be here."
"Always are." The words slur together, consciousness fading. "My brother. My best friend."
"Always will be." I whisper it to the quiet room. "Even after. Always."
His breathing evens out, deepening into the shallow rhythm of sleep. I sit there in the darkness, holding the hand of the person I love most in this world, and finally let myself grieve.
Not for what I've lost yet. But for what I know I'm going to lose.
And there's nothing—not all my training, not all my magic, not every remedy and spell and prayer—that can stop it.