Chapter 29 Firelight
Dante
The sound reaches her before the light does.
A deep boom rolls through the night, low enough that it rattles the glass and vibrates faintly through the stone beneath our feet. I feel her tense beside me, her attention snapping away as if someone has pulled a thread tied directly to her spine.
She turns toward the balcony doors, hair brushing her shoulders, and pushes them open before I can say anything. Cold night air spills into the room, sharp and clean, carrying smoke, music, and the unmistakable scent of spiced alcohol.
"What's going on out there?" she asks, already leaning forward.
I follow her to the railing and look down.
The sky explodes.
Fireworks bloom over the town red and gold first, then blue, then white so bright it briefly turns night into day.
The sound echoes off rooftops and towers, rolling outward like thunder.
Below us, the streets are alive. People spill out of taverns and homes, cups raised, arms linked, bodies moving to music that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.
"They're celebrating," I say.
She tilts her head, watching another burst fracture across the sky. "Celebrating what?"
I shrug. "Depends who you ask."
She looks at me, incredulous. "You don't know?"
I lean my forearms against the railing. "Every part of my kingdom has different customs. Different cultures. Different languages. Some celebrate harvests. Some celebrate saints. Some celebrate surviving the week."
Another firework bursts, showering sparks like falling stars.
"And some," I add, "just decide tonight feels like a good night to get drunk."
Below us, a group of men stumble through a dance, laughing so hard one nearly collapses. Someone bangs on a drum that looks older than most crowns. A woman sings loudly and terribly, and no one tells her to stop.
Isabella watches them like she's afraid the moment will vanish if she blinks.
There's something in her expression soft, unguarded. Awe, maybe. Longing. It makes my chest tighten in a way I don't like acknowledging.
"Do you want to join them?" I ask.
She startles, turning to me. "No—no, I shouldn't."
"Why not?"
She hesitates, fingers curling lightly around the stone railing. "I don't want to make them uncomfortable."
I blink. "Uncomfortable?"
"People get awkward around nobility," she says quietly. "They stop being themselves. They watch every word, every movement."
I laugh short and surprised. "That's not how it works here."
She looks unconvinced.
"This isn't your kingdom," I say. "Yes, respect is expected. Protocol exists."
She studies me.
"But My people know I'm king," I continue. "They also know I'm human. They've seen me drunk in a tavern. Sitting on a wall reading. Swimming in the pond when it's too hot to think."
Her brows knit. "You—swim?"
I smirk. "Shocking, I know."
"The difference," I say more seriously, "is that I don't pretend to be untouchable. The guards are there, yes—but mostly to stop idiots from getting themselves killed."
She looks back at the streets, thoughtful.
"Your kingdom has a divide," I go on. "Nobles inside the inner walls. Peasants outside. Guarded. Untouched."
She doesn't deny it.
"Here," I say, "we coexist. A peasant might not afford silk on their wages—but if they save, if they work, they can walk into a boutique and buy it without fear of being thrown out for daring to want more."
She exhales slowly
I turn away from the balcony and cross the room, opening a low cabinet. Inside, nestled in dark velvet, are the claws.
I hesitate only a second before lifting them.
"Come here," I say.
She approaches cautiously.
"Put these on."
Her fingers tremble slightly as she slides them over her own. They fit perfectly. Too perfectly.
Her breath catches.
I swallow.
In another life, I had these made for her. Gave them to her on her birthday. Two years from now.
She turns her hands slowly, watching the gold gleam in the firelight, confusion flickering across her face as if something about them feels familiar without explanation.
"They're made from a special iron," I explain. "It reacts to poison. Turns dark green. Heats up."
I flex my own fingers. "That's why I always wear mine."
Her eyes lift to mine, searching.
"You'll use them a lot," I say. "Especially if you're going to interact with people here."
She nods.
"They take getting used to," I add. "Most people think they're decorative. Nobles wear stranger things."
I smile faintly. "Each pair is custom-made. Mine match my armor. What I stand for."
She swallows, fingers curling experimentally.
Before she can retreat back into thought, I grab her hand.
"Come on."
"Dante—wait—"
I don't.
I pull her with me, down the stairs, out the door, into noise and light and life. Her laugh breaks free, surprised and unguarded, and the sound hits me harder than any blade ever has.
The streets swallow us.
Music presses in from all sides. Someone hands her a cup; she laughs and refuses. Someone spins past us, nearly colliding, and she stumbles then laughs again, louder this time.
She dances awkward at first, then freer. Like someone remembering what it feels like to exist without watching for knives.
I watch her.
The way her shoulders relax.
The way her eyes shine.
The way she laughs like the world hasn't tried to kill her.
She looks free.
By the time I lead her back inside, the night has finally taken its toll on her.
It always does.
An hour among music and firelight will soften even the sharpest edges, and she has lived too long with her spine held rigid, her senses stretched thin.
Her laughter has faded into quiet smiles now, her steps slower, heavier.
Exhaustion clings to her like a second cloak one she can't shrug off, no matter how hard she tries.
I keep my hand at her elbow as we walk, guiding more than touching.
She doesn't protest. She barely speaks. The house is quieter now, emptied of voices and movement, the fire burning low in the hearth.
Shadows stretch across the walls as we pass, and I catch myself noticing the small things how her shoulders finally slump, how her chin dips.
I open the door to the bedroom across from mine.
She nods, already swaying, eyes glassy with fatigue. I help her to the bed, easing her down carefully. She doesn't remove the golden claws. Doesn't remove anything at all. She curls instinctively on her side, like her body has been waiting for permission to stop standing guard.
Within minutes, her breathing evens out.
Slow. Deep.
I step back, quiet as a shadow, and pull the door mostly closed. The latch doesn't click. Then I lean against the wall in the corridor, head tipping back, eyes closing for just a moment.
Only then do I let myself think.
In another life, I almost never saw her like this.
She belonged to battlefields then. To war tents thick with the smell of blood and iron and fear. I saw her with mud on her boots and blood on her sleeves, hair pulled back too tightly, eyes too old for her face. She was forced into places no woman—no queen—should have known.
And still she prayed.
For the soldiers she hurried to, hands stained red as she pressed them to wounds.
For the ones who screamed her name and the ones who never learned it.
For allies and enemies alike.
She prayed anyway.
I spent years loving her from a distance she never noticed, watching her carry mercy like a blade she refused to sheath. Watching her give pieces of herself to a world that would eventually devour her whole.
And now—
Now that woman will be my wife.
The thought settles heavy and frightening in my chest.
Sacred.
Terrifying.
Irrevocable.
I push away from the wall and turn toward my room.
That's when I hear it.
A sound so small it almost slips past me.
A sob.
I freeze mid-step.
It comes again broken, raw, dragged from somewhere deep inside her chest. Not waking grief. Dream grief. The kind that claws its way out when the body finally believes it's safe enough to collapse.
My feet move before my mind catches up.
I open her door quietly.
She's crying in her sleep.
Tears streak her face, soaking into the pillow beneath her cheek. Her brow is drawn tight, lips trembling as though she's trying to speak words that won't come. Her hands curl into the sheets, fingers clutching at fabric like it might anchor her to something solid.
The sight punches the breath from my lungs.
For a heartbeat, I'm not here.
I'm back in that cell.
Cold stone.
Iron bars.
Her body broken and pale beneath flickering torchlight.
The way she cried like this then silent, helpless, beyond comfort.
I don't hesitate.
I move to the bed and sit carefully beside her, the mattress dipping beneath my weight. I slide an arm beneath her shoulders and shift her just enough that her head comes to rest against my thigh.
Her crying falters almost immediately.
I thread my fingers through her hair, slow and gentle, the way my hands remember even when my mind wishes they didn't. I smooth the strands back from her face again and again, grounding her to the present
Her breathing stutters once.
Then steadies.
The tension eases from her brow. Her body relaxes, melting into the warmth of my lap like some version of her remembers this even if her waking mind does not.
I stay there.
Minutes pass. Maybe hours.
My legs go numb. I don't move. My back aches where it presses against the headboard. I don't care. I keep my hand in her hair, tracing the same slow path over and over, anchoring her to a night without blades, without crowds screaming for her death.
Eventually, my own eyelids grow heavy.
I lean back carefully, making sure not to disturb her, and let sleep take me too still seated, still guarding, still unwilling to leave her alone with whatever ghosts chase her through her dreams.