39. Aeryn
AERYN
The vision begins quietly this time.
No pain at first. No violent fracture behind my eyes.
Just stillness spreading through me as I sit alone beneath the outer ridge overlooking the Zethon encampment, the night air cold against my skin while distant fires burn across the valley below like scattered stars fallen into the earth.
The war continues moving, even now. Messengers crossing between divisions.
Soldiers repositioning. Velkiron retreating from one line only to reinforce another.
And somewhere beyond all of it, Xalith still carries the artifact.
I close my eyes anyway. The future opens.
Threads crossing over one another, outcomes branching and collapsing before they fully form, possibilities folding inward beneath the weight of decisions already made. I move through them carefully now, no longer searching for victory, only truth.
I know what I’m looking for.
Control.
Chains hidden beneath alliances. Futures where I become useful enough to cage. Futures where my visions are turned into obedience instead of choice. I spent too long expecting that outcome not to search for it now.
I find fragments first.
A Zethon council chamber where men I barely recognize attempt to dictate what I see and when I speak.
A Velkiron envoy offering protection wrapped in softer language.
A future where fear turns me silent long before anyone else tries.
Another where Vaedros stands beside me while others push for restraint, for limitation, for ownership disguised as strategy.
But none of them hold.
Every path where someone reaches for control fractures before completion.
Every future where I am traded breaks apart before it settles into permanence.
And Vaedros…He remains.
Not always beside me physically. Sometimes across battlefields. Sometimes bloodied. Sometimes furious enough to make the room around him feel dangerous. But never once standing above me.
Never once holding chains.
The realization arrives slowly, almost carefully, because I spent so long preparing for betrayal that the absence of it feels harder to trust than the threat itself.
The vision shifts again.
I see myself standing at the edge of a ruined city months from now, wind tearing through black banners while soldiers move beneath the walls carrying both Zethon and Drazharel markings side by side.
Vaedros reaches me through the crowd without hesitation. Not command. Not possession. Choice.
The future folds closed before I can follow it further.
Pain comes afterward, sharp enough to force a breath from me as I brace one hand against the stone beside me. Blood slips warm beneath my nose. I wipe it away automatically and stare out across the valley while my pulse settles back into rhythm.
No chains. No cages. No future where I disappear beneath someone else’s will.
I believe that fully.
Footsteps approach behind me sometime later, familiar long before they stop beside me. Vaedros says nothing at first. He lowers himself onto the stone beside me with more care than he would have needed before the ruin, the old wound still healing beneath layers of bandages and stubbornness.
“You pushed too far again,” he says eventually, his gaze settling on the blood at my wrist.
“You say that every time.”
“Because every time remains accurate.”
I glance sideways at him. Moonlight catches along the sharp line of his jaw, silvering the dark fabric at his collar and the strands of his hair fallen loose near his forehead. There is exhaustion in him tonight, though he hides it better than most men ever could.
I wonder if he realizes I know the difference now.
“I needed to see something,” I say.
“And did you?”
“Yes.”
That earns his full attention.
The camp below us glows against the dark valley while the silence stretches comfortably between us for once, no sharp edges hidden beneath it, no unspoken threat waiting to surface. Strange how unfamiliar peace can feel after surviving too long inside tension.
Finally he asks, “What did you see?”
I lean back slightly against the stone behind me, staring upward where clouds drift slowly across the night sky. “I spent a long time believing every future ended the same way.”
“With someone trying to use you.”
“Yes.”
He says nothing.
“I kept waiting for it,” I continue quietly. “From Zethon. From Velkiron. From you.”
His gaze remains on me now, steady and unreadable in the dark.
“And now?”
“Now I can’t find a single future where you try.”
The honesty of it feels strangely intimate. More dangerous than confession should.
Vaedros looks away first, toward the fires below. “That should probably concern you.”
“It would,” I reply softly, “if I thought you were lying.”
A faint smile touches his mouth before disappearing again.
“I’m rarely dishonest with you.”
“You were at the beginning.”
“Yes.” He doesn’t bother denying it. “You were difficult to predict.”
“I still am.”
“That part hasn’t improved.”
I laugh quietly at that, and the sound surprises both of us a little.
The wind moves colder across the ridge. Vaedros notices before I do, reaching to pull his cloak free from his shoulders and draping it around me without asking permission first. The fabric still carries warmth from his skin.
“You’ll freeze out here,” he says.
“And you won’t?”
“I’m less fragile.”
“You were bleeding into a cave floor a couple of days ago.”
“And yet here I am.”
I glance at him again. “Gods, you’re arrogant.”
“Yes,” he replies calmly. “You like that about me.”
Heat rises unexpectedly beneath my skin, which only annoys me because he notices immediately.
“There it is,” he murmurs.
“I regret speaking.”
“No, you don’t.”
Unfortunately true.
“What happens after this?” I ask eventually.
Vaedros turns toward me fully then, the humor fading from his expression. “After the war?”
“Yes.”
“You think we survive it?”
“I saw enough to ask the question.”
That answer holds him quiet for a moment.
Then, “I stay.”
The simplicity of it catches me off guard more effectively than any elaborate promise could have.
“With Zethon?” I ask.
“With you.”
No politics wrapped around his answer. No strategy hidden beneath the surface.
I study him carefully anyway. Habit. Survival. “Even if this falls apart?”
“Yes.”
“Even if they stop trusting me?”
“Yes.”
“Even if there’s nothing left worth gaining?”
A faint crease appears between his brows. “You still think I’m negotiating.”
“I think you spent your entire life turning survival into strategy.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No,” I admit. “It isn’t.”
The quiet stretches again. Somewhere below us, a horn sounds once across the camp.
Vaedros watches me for a while before speaking again. “What do you need me to say?”
“The truth.”
“You already have it.”
“Then prove it.”
His gaze sharpens slightly at the challenge. I hold it anyway.
“No titles,” I say. “No alliances. No war. If all of this vanished tomorrow, what would you do?”
He doesn’t answer immediately this time, and I almost hate how much that matters while I wait.
Then he steps closer.
Not enough to corner. Just enough that I can feel his warmth beneath the cold wind.
“I would still choose you,” he says quietly. “And that would remain true whether it benefited me or ruined me.”
The air leaves my lungs a little unevenly. No hesitation. No calculation. Just truth spoken plainly in the dark.
I search for the angle anyway because part of me still expects one to exist. But there’s nothing hidden beneath his expression tonight. No manipulation tucked beneath charm. No careful positioning.
Only him. And gods help me, I trust it now.
I close the remaining distance first.
His hand catches gently at my waist the moment I kiss him, warmth spreading instantly through the cold space between us as his other hand lifts to the side of my neck.
The kiss deepens almost immediately, months of tension unraveling beneath restraint neither of us bothers pretending to maintain anymore.
Vaedros pulls me closer until I’m half in his lap against the stone, his mouth moving against mine with enough hunger to steal breath without ever becoming rough.
My fingers slide into his hair, loosening the careful control he carries through everything else, and the sound he makes against my mouth nearly undoes me completely.
“You’re dangerous when you trust someone,” he murmurs between kisses.
“You should be terrified.”
“I am.”
Liar.
But his hands tighten slightly against my waist anyway.
The tension between us has always felt like a blade pulled taut enough to cut. This feels different. Warmer. No less intense, but stripped of the constant expectation that one of us will eventually pull away.
I kiss him again before he can say anything else.
His hand slides along my spine beneath the cloak, pulling me fully against him while the world below us continues moving toward battles neither of us can stop tonight. For once, neither of us reaches for strategy or caution or distance.
Just this. Just each other.
Vaedros leans back slightly, looking up at me with an expression I’ve never seen from him before. Not softened exactly. He will never be soft.
But open.
“You realize,” he says quietly, thumb brushing beneath my jaw, “that I’m not very good at halfway with you.”
My pulse stumbles once. “I noticed.”
“That should probably concern you too.”
“Maybe later.”
His laugh is low and rough against my mouth before he kisses me again, slower this time, with enough care behind it to make my chest ache unexpectedly.
The future has shown me endless versions of loss. This isn’t one of them.
His hand slips beneath the edge of my shirt, skin against skin now, and heat rushes through me fast enough to blur the edge of thought entirely.