"I saw someone who looked as lonely as I felt. As if all those years of climbing, all those years of searching—they'd led me to the one person in the universe who understood. Who had been just as alone as I was, just as unseen, just as desperate for someone to finally, finally look."

  "So no, I don't know why I came. I don't know why I kept coming. I don't know why, out of all the mortals who have ever lived, I'm the one who can see you. But I do. I see you. And I'm not going anywhere."

  The admission hung in the air, raw and embarrassing and absolutely true.

  "I know what it's like to be alone," I continued, my voice dropping. "My mother—she's been lost to me for years. The madness took her before I was old enough to really know her. My father died slowly, wasting away in that bed while I watched. The villagers look at me like I'm either cursed or pitiful, and honestly, I'm not sure which is worse. I've been surrounded by people my whole life, and I've never felt like I belonged anywhere."

  I blinked rapidly, refusing to let the tears fall.

  "But you—it seems you've been alone for a long time. Not just alone in this place, but alone in the universe. No one knowing who you really are. No one to talk to about the things you've seen, the things you've done. No one to just... be with." I shook my head. "I couldn't bear it. I couldn't bear the thought of you up here, day after day, year after year, with nothing but the wind for company."

  I finally met his eyes again, defiant despite the tears threatening to spill.

  "So yes, I climbed a mountain. Yes, I probably look insane. Yes, I just accused a divine being of potentially being a beauty-stealing vampire in my head—" I winced. "You definitely heard that, didn't you?"

  The corner of his mouth twitched.

  "But I don't care. Because you were alone. And I couldn't let you be alone anymore. That's why."

  The silence stretched between us, but it wasn't uncomfortable. It was full—full of something I couldn't name, something that made my heart beat faster and my skin tingle where his gaze rested.

  He reached out, slowly, as if giving me time to flee, and touched my cheek with fingers that should have been cold but were warm instead. Warm like sunlight. Warm like home.

  "No one has seen me in a millennia," he murmured. "No one has wanted to see me. The mortals come for healing, for blessings, for the comfort of a myth. But you..." His thumb traced the line of my cheekbone, feather-light. "You came for me."

  I leaned into his touch, unable to help myself. "Always."

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  He closed his eyes for a long moment, and when he opened them, they held something I hadn't seen before—hope, fragile and new, like the first green shoot after a long winter.

  Then, without warning, that hope flickered into something else. Something that looked almost like amusement.

  "And I'm not a Valok, Giana."

  I froze.

  "You—" My voice cracked. "You heard that?"

  "The part about me stealing your beauty?" His lips twitched. "Yes. Along with the part about you being a 'young maiden, technically,' and the part about Old Man Hendrick's drunken storytelling, and the part where you mentally prepared your funeral eulogy complete with the phrase 'now she's just a cautionary tale and a very wrinkled corpse.'"

  The heat that flooded my cheeks could have melted the frozen waterfall behind him.

  "Oh gods," I whispered. "Oh gods. I was thinking out loud? I was thinking out loud the entire time?"

  "You were not just thinking out loud." His voice was carefully, deliberately neutral, but his eyes were dancing. "You were thinking at a volume that could have alerted the village below. The ants two miles down the mountain heard your internal monologue about virgin sacrifice and beauty theft. I simply happened to be close enough to catch the details."

  I pressed my hands to my burning face. "I want to die."

  "You were also mentally rehearsing a very dramatic speech about facing your fate with dignity," he continued mercilessly. "I particularly enjoyed the part where you squared your shoulders and lifted your chin. Very heroic. Very doomed."

  "I hate you."

  "No, you don't." He was definitely smiling now—a real smile, wide and warm and devastating. "You climbed a mountain because you couldn't bear the thought of me being alone. That is not the behaviour of someone who hates me."

  I peeked through my fingers. "I could hate you now. For the mind-reading. That's allowed."

  "I don't read minds, Giana. I can, but you were thinking very loudly—out loud, through your actual mouth," he repeated, as if that excused everything. "It would have been rude not to listen."

  I made a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a laugh—mostly because if I didn't laugh, I was going to spontaneously combust from embarrassment.

  He was still smiling. Still looking at me like I was something precious and absurd and wonderful all at once.

  And despite the mortification, despite the heat in my cheeks, despite the certain knowledge that I would never live this down for the rest of my mortal life.

  Right now, I had a laughing king and a mountain and a future that suddenly looked a lot less lonely than it had an hour ago.

  "Shut up," I muttered.

  "I didn't say anything."

  "Your face is saying things."

  "My face is saying that you are the most entertaining mortal I have encountered."

  "That's not a compliment."

  "It absolutely is."

  I dropped my hands from my face and glared at him.

  "Fine," I huffed. "But if you ever tell anyone about this—about any of this—I will find a way to make your immortal existence very, very difficult."

  His smile widened. "Giana."

  "What?"

  "I have been alone for thousands of years. You are the first person to threaten me and mean it as a promise of continued company." He leaned closer, his forehead almost touching mine. "I would not trade that for anything."

  And just like that, the embarrassment faded, replaced by something warmer, something that settled into my chest like a second heartbeat.

  "Okay," I whispered. "Good. Because I'm not going anywhere."

  He closed his eyes again, and this time when he opened them, the hope was still there—stronger now, steadier.

  And so was the smile.