But he knew. Not the details, perhaps, but enough.

  One afternoon, when I was seventeen, I arrived at the plateau with tears already frozen on my cheeks. I hadn't even realized I was crying until I saw his face change—that ancient, unreadable expression shifting into something sharper, something harder.

  "What happened?" His voice was quiet, but there was an edge to it I had never heard before.

  I tried to smile, to wave it away, but my body betrayed me. I winced as I sat down, my hand pressing instinctively to my ribs where new bruises flowered beneath my tunic.

  He was beside me in an instant, faster than any mortal movement. His hands hovered near me, not quite touching, as if he was afraid, he might hurt me further. "Giana. Show me."

  "It's nothing," I whispered. "The same as always."

  But he wouldn't be deterred. Gently, so gently it made my eyes sting with fresh tears, he lifted the edge of my tunic just enough to see. The bruises were fresh—purple and black, spreading across my ribs like a map of my mother's madness. I heard his breath catch, saw his jaw tighten, watched his hands curl into fists at his sides.

  Panic flared through me—not of him, never of him, but of the exposure, the vulnerability, the shame of being seen so completely in my brokenness. I reached to pull the tunic back down, to hide the evidence of what waited for me at the base of the mountain.

  His hand caught mine. Firm. Unyielding.

  I looked up, and the sight of him stole the breath from my lungs.

  His eyes were different. Those star-flecked irises that usually held the cold, distant fire of constellations now blazed with something else entirely. The stars had not gone out—they had ignited. Swirls of silver and gold churned behind the darkness of his pupils, galaxies spinning into being and collapsing in on themselves in the space of heartbeats. The light that emanated from them was no longer gentle, no longer warm. It was the light of creation itself—the raw, untamed fire that had shaped worlds and could unmake them just as easily. It was the first dawn and the final sunset, compressed into two eyes that were fixed on me with an intensity that should have sent me to my knees.

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  "Don't you dare hide from me," he said, his voice low and rough, vibrating with something that made the very air around us tremble. "And do not tell me this is nothing."

  His grip on my hand was gentle but absolute. With his other hand, he carefully—so carefully, as if handling something precious and fragile—moved my tunic aside, exposing the full extent of the damage.

  The bruises spread across my ribs like a storm cloud, purple-black at the center where the blows had landed hardest, fading to sickly green at the edges where older injuries had begun to heal. They mapped the shape of her fury—the arc of her fist, the swing of whatever object had been closest, the kick she had landed when I fell. The skin was swollen, stretched tight over bones that I suspected—that I knew, from the way each breath sent a spike of agony through my side—were cracked if not broken. A dark line, almost black, traced the curve of my lowest rib, marking where something had given way.

  He stared at it for a long, terrible moment. His hand, still holding mine, trembled—just once, barely perceptible, but I felt it.

  For a long moment, he said nothing. But the mountain felt it. The wind died. The distant cry of birds fell silent. Even the sun seemed to dim, as if the very sky was responding to the fury building inside him.

  "I could end this," he said finally, his voice so low it was almost a growl. "I could go to your village, to your mother, and—"

  "No." I grabbed his hand, desperate. "Please. She's sick. She doesn't know what she does. And if you intervene... they'll know. They'll see you for what you are, and—"

  "And what am I?" He turned to look at me, and for the first time, I saw the full weight of what he was—not just the healer, not just the quiet guardian, but the King. The Linchpin. The being whose anger could shake mountains and whose power could unmake worlds. "I am the one who let this happen to you. I am the one who watched you limp up this mountain for years and did nothing."

  "You didn't know—"

  "I should have known." The words were sharp, sharp as broken glass. "I should have seen. I should have—" He stopped, closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the fury was banked. Controlled. Hidden away where I couldn't see it, for my sake. The galaxies in his eyes calmed to their usual distant glow, but I knew—I would always know now—what lay beneath. "I cannot heal what you will not show me, Giana. But know this: if you ever need me—truly need me—I will come. No matter the cost. No matter what I must reveal of myself. Do you understand?"

  I nodded, not trusting my voice.