And that tiny movement, that almost-smile, was somehow more terrifying than anything else. Because it meant he could probably hear every single thought ricocheting around my skull like peas in a rattle.

  Oh gods, what if he can read minds?

  I was going to die. I was going to die on this mountain, and the elders would tell stories about the foolish girl who climbed too high and got herself eaten by a beauty-thieving vampire. They would use me as a warning to other curious maidens for generations. "Remember young Giana," they'd say, "who thought she could outsmart a Valok. Now she's just a cautionary tale and a very wrinkled corpse."

  Hey! But at least I'd be famous.

  I squared my shoulders, lifted my chin, and prepared to meet my fate with what little dignity I had left.

  But still. I had definitely looked too long. He had definitely waited long enough. And I was definitely a young maiden—technically, if you counted the technicality of having never been married and, well, you know.

  I could feel the heat spreading across my cheeks, part embarrassment, part terror, part utter mortification at the direction of my own thoughts. Here I was, standing before a being who might actually be a divine king, and my brain again had decided to devote its energy to panicking about vampire stories and my virginity.

  I opened my mouth again, determined to salvage something—anything—from this disaster.

  And then he smiled.

  It was slow, that smile—devastatingly beautiful, spreading across his features. It was the first time I had ever seen him smile, truly smile, and it felt like the sun rising after a lifetime of darkness. The weight of centuries seemed to lift from his shoulders, just for a moment.

  "And you," he said, his voice softer now, wonder threading through the ancient authority, "are the first mortal in a thousand years to see me. Not the healer. Not the stranger. Not the myth. Me."

  He took a step closer, then another, until he stood before me, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from him, could see the individual flecks of light in his impossible eyes. "What is your name, child-who-is-not-a-child?"

  "Giana," I whispered.

  "Giana." He tested the word; let it rest on his tongue like something precious. "You climbed a mountain to find me. You braved the thin air and the frozen paths. You saw through every disguise I have worn for millennia." He tilted his head, studying me as if I were the mystery, not him. "Why?"

  The question hung between us, and for a moment, I struggled to find words big enough to hold the answer.

  How could I explain something I barely understood myself? The pull I had felt since childhood—not a voice, not a vision, but something deeper. A certainty that had taken root in my bones before I could even speak it. The way my dreams were filled with a face I had never seen, a presence I could not name, until the day I first glimpsed him in the village and realized: there. There he is. I have been waiting for you.

  But that sounded insane. That sounded like the kind of confession that would get me locked in a shed and prayed over by the village elders and priest for my entire life.

  So, I started with what I knew.

  "I've been watching you since I could remember," I admitted. "Not in a creepy way! I mean—well, probably in a creepy way, actually. Following someone around for years without them knowing is pretty much the definition of creepy. But I didn't mean it like that. I just... I couldn't stop."

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  He raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

  "I would see you in the village, healing people. My mother—she only wanted you in our home when she had to, when her headaches were too much to bear alone. But I would watch from the window whenever you tended to the neighbours. And every time, I felt this... pull. Like there was a string tied somewhere inside my chest, and the other end was wrapped around you." I pressed a hand to my heart, as if I could still feel it. "I know how that sounds. I know it sounds like the beginning of every bad love song the traveling minstrels torture us with at harvest festivals. But it's true."

  Still, he waited. Listening. Actually listening, like every word I stumbled through mattered.

  "I started climbing the mountain when I was old enough to sneak away. Not to find you—I didn't even know you lived up here then. I just thought... if I got high enough, maybe I could see clearly. Maybe I could understand why I felt so restless all the time, like I was supposed to be somewhere else, with someone else, living a different life." I laughed, a little bitterly. "Stupid, right? A peasant girl with delusions of destiny."

  "There is nothing stupid about wanting to understand yourself," he said quietly.

  I shrugged, embarrassed by the kindness in his voice. "The mountain never gave me answers. Just cold feet and a lot of near-death experiences. Old Man Hendrick's stories about boys coming back broken? I used to have nightmares about them. But I kept coming anyway. Kept climbing. Kept hoping that maybe, if I went high enough, I'd finally figure out what I was looking for."

  I looked up at him then, really looked, and felt that familiar ache settles into place.

  "The first time I came up here, I was seven years old." I laughed, shaking my head at the absurdity of it. "Seven. Can you imagine? A scrawny little thing with scraped knees and too much courage, climbing a mountain that grown men were too terrified to attempt."

  I paused, the memory sharp and vivid despite the years between.

  "I didn't make it far that day—maybe just past the tree line, where the pines start thinning out. I was cold and scared and my legs were shaking so badly I could barely stand. And then I saw you. Just standing there, looking out over the edge like you were waiting for something. You turned, and our eyes met, and—"

  I shivered, the feeling still fresh.

  "I ran. I turned around and scrambled down that mountain so fast I probably set a record. I was terrified. Not of you, exactly, but of what I'd seen in your eyes. They weren't like anyone else's. They were... otherworldly. And sad. And so, so lonely. I didn't know who you were or what you were, but in that moment, I knew you were different. I knew I'd seen something I wasn't supposed to see."

  I paused, the memory washing over me.

  "Deep down, in a place I didn't have words for yet, I knew. I had found him. The King from the stories. The one the elders whispered about but never named. I didn't understand how or why, but some part of me recognized you. And it terrified me so much I couldn't breathe."

  His expression shifted—a flicker of something I couldn't name.

  "For years after that, I told myself I'd imagined it. That the cold and the thin air had played tricks on my child's mind. But I couldn't stop thinking about those eyes. Couldn't stop dreaming about them. And the pull—that strange, insistent tug in my chest—it never went away. It only got stronger."

  I wrapped my arms around myself, not from cold, but from the vulnerability of speaking these truths aloud.

  "So, I kept climbing. Every chance I got. Not to find you—I was too scared for that, if I'm honest. But to prove to myself that I could. To push a little further each time, a little higher, as if getting closer to wherever you lived might help me understand why I couldn't forget you."

  I looked down at my feet—the same feet that had carried me up this mountain hundreds of times over seven years.

  "Past the tree line. Past the first snow. Past the point where the air got so thin I thought my lungs might give out. I never saw you again. Not for years. Just the mountain, and the sky, and my own lonely footsteps stretching out behind me. I started to think maybe I was imagining it all. Maybe the pull was just my own loneliness tricking me into believing there was something more out there. Maybe I was just like those stupid boys in the stories—doomed to come back broken, empty, wondering what I'd lost but never able to name it."

  I met his eyes again.

  "But I kept climbing anyway. Because the alternative—staying in that village, in that hovel, within those four walls—that was worse. That was its own kind of death. So, I climbed. Day after day, year after year, telling myself I was just stubborn, just foolish, just too stupid to know when to quit."

  My voice cracked, just a little.

  "And then I found you. Not at the summit—I never made it that far, never even tried after a while. But here. At the waterfall. And I looked at you, and I didn't see the healer. I didn't see the stranger who passes through our village. I saw..."

  I trailed off, heat flooding my cheeks.