THIRTY-SIX
ONLY HERS
The demons within us are often more dangerous than the enemies before us.
—VALEN’S JOURNAL
AMARA
After the Ashen Ring, Thane and I lie in bed, the room dim and still. His arms are wrapped around me, his body curved against mine like a shield.
His breath brushes the back of my neck, and a few strands of hair stir as he speaks.
“What happened earlier?”
I know what he’s referring to. Not the Ashen Ring itself. But what came after—when Ardyn’s words sank their claws in. When she looked me in the eye and told me the memorial was my fault.
Her voice still echoes in my head, sharp and venomous.
I don’t answer right away. I just lie there, my back against his chest, letting the silence stretch between us. His arms don’t loosen. If anything, they tighten slightly, as though he can feel the spiral beginning even without the bond.
He doesn’t push at first. He simply holds me a little closer.
After a moment, he speaks again.
“Talk to me.”
Three words. No command. Just a request. But they land like a lifeline.
I swallow, my throat tight.
“She said it was my fault,” I whisper. “Ardyn. She said the memorial only existed because of me. That if I hadn’t come to the capital, none of them would’ve died.”
The circles against my hip stop.
Shame rises like a tide as I whisper, barely audible, “And part of me believes her.”
Thane goes still behind me. Not cold. Contained. The kind of stillness that hides a storm beneath it.
Then, in a voice so controlled it almost unsettles me, he asks, “She said that to you?”
I nod. And then I turn.
I shift in his arms and face him fully, searching his eyes for something. Reason. Forgiveness. A truth I cannot seem to give myself.
He releases a breath, the heat of his fire simmering beneath carefully maintained control.
“She said that to you,” he repeats, quieter this time, trying to contain what it stirs inside him.
“I watched soldiers fall before we ever knew your name,” he says, his jaw tightening.
“I watched good men die while the Council argued over alliances and borders instead of the Shadeheart’s threat.
That memorial didn’t happen because of you.
It happened because the realm has been bleeding for years. ”
He draws me closer, one hand settling against my lower back while the other brushes my jaw, as though he needs me to understand what comes next.
“You didn’t start this war, Amara. But you might be the one who helps end it.”
His gaze holds mine.
“And I need you to hear me when I say this.”
The words are quiet. Steadfast.
“You are not the reason those people died.”
His thumb brushes my cheek.
“The Shadow Forces are.”
Then he leans forward, resting his forehead against mine, his next words a vow whispered into the space between us.
“And if she ever speaks to you like that again—”
“I know,” I breathe.
He doesn’t finish the threat.
For a while, we simply breathe. His forehead rests against mine, his hands holding me like a promise, and the pressure I’ve been carrying for days begins to loosen.
The attack at the ball. The gravity of the memorial. The eyes that follow me everywhere. The expectations.
Ardyn’s words. Her certainty. My doubts.
And beneath all of it, the lesson Valen taught me that morning. The Second Breath. The stillness that asked me to stop fighting long enough to feel what was already there. I think of the flame hovering above my palm.
Of learning to hold without grasping. To allow without forcing. To let things exist without immediately trying to change them.
A shaky breath leaves me. Then another. And for the first time since the attack, I stop trying to contain it all.
The grief. The guilt. The fear.
I let myself feel it.
The tears come quietly, slipping free without resistance.
Thane pulls me closer, asking for nothing in return. Just his arms around me while I cry into his chest.
THANE
She’s lying against my chest, her breathing finally even, tears gone. The tension in her body has eased.
Every time I think we’ve found our footing, something else hurts her. The prophecy. The court. Now Ardyn.
I keep trying to shield her from the uglier side of politics. The maneuvering. The games. The people who smile while they hold sharpened knives behind their backs. Those damn knives keep finding her.
She already carries too much.
Fucking Ardyn.
How did I ever see anything in her?
The answer sits heavy in my chest.
I was lost after Kastiel died. Mother followed a year later. I was angry enough to mistake bitterness for strength. I couldn’t see clearly.
Now I do.
And what I see leaves little room for regret.
I’m grateful Amara finally opened up to me. She shut me out during the Ashen Ring, even when I reached for her through our bond. For a while, I wasn’t sure she would let me in at all.
Gods, I want nothing more than to stay here. Her skin against mine. Her breathing evening into the slow rhythm of sleep. The bond wrapping around every part of me that still carries the weight of the Ashen Ring.
But there’s something I need to show her. I was going to wait, but now I think she needs it. Something that belongs only to her in this hard city of stone.
I press a kiss into her hair, then murmur, “Will you come with me? It won’t take long.”
She shifts to look up at me. “Now?”
Her voice is soft. Drowsy.
“Please.”
She stretches beside me.
“Fine,” she whispers, a ghost of a smile at the edge of her mouth. “But only because you said please.”
I grin. “You’re going to want your robe.”
A few minutes later, her hand is in mine as I lead her through the corridor and out into the gardens beneath our balcony, tucked beneath an overhang of stone and stars.
With a flick of my fingers, I set four fire orbs alight. They drift into the air, casting a warm golden glow across the path ahead. The path I’ve been waiting to walk with her.
We move in comfortable silence. I revel in the sound of her footsteps beside me. In the way her hand fits mine. In the simple, unbearable miracle of her.
I know better than to believe moments like this last forever, but I have this one. And that’s enough.
Then I see it—tucked against the low stone wall. I stop in front of the raised garden beds, already prepared for the cold bite of late autumn.
The soil is dark and freshly turned, lined with straw to hold the warmth a little longer. A few hardy herbs cling to life at the edges, their leaves curled but stubborn. Fallen leaves gather in the corners, caught against the wooden frames like quiet offerings.
Nothing blooms. But it isn’t dead. It’s waiting.
For her.
“Valen said something once,” I murmur, eyes still on the garden beds. “About you. About grounding yourself in dirt. Though I’m sure he said it in some long-winded, poetic way that only Valen can.”
I glance at her. Her eyes are already shining.
“So I had this made. To help you—”
She doesn’t let me finish.
She steps into me and kisses me. Hard. Hands in my hair. Mouth against mine. Her whole body pressed close, like she’s trying to tell me a hundred things she doesn’t have words for.
She parts my lips with hers, and I let it all go.
All the restraint.
All the worry.
Everything I am.