Dane traced the coarseness of the stone slab with his fingers. B-rank had made his skin tougher, but even so, he could feel the grit and the cold bite. He could see the shallow ruts his anxious fingers had worn into the surface over the past five days of waiting for a decision.

  If this little cell was any indicator of how he was faring in the eyes of the judges, then he already knew the verdict.

  Boots clicked down the corridor.

  "McAllister. You have a visitor," the guard said.

  Dane lifted his head toward the door and smelled her before he saw her. Amelia had always favored floral scents, but she must have grown partial to the sandalwood he kept stocked in their bathroom. The realization hit him harder than he expected. It was a reminder of closeness, of a home he wasn't sure he still had.

  He didn't know how to feel about her. He loved her, but he'd been dreading the conversation they could no longer avoid. It was a strange kind of pain, being told you were a stranger when you'd been trying so hard to build a life with someone. Who am I kidding? I left her when she needed me, and I cut ties for something that would have happened even without the snake's help.

  Amelia's silhouette appeared at the far end of the corridor, haloed by torchlight. The gate that passed for a door clicked open.

  "I'll give you two some space," the guard murmured, awkwardly rubbing his neck as he turned to leave.

  Dane didn't know what to expect. But he knew what he hoped would happen. That she would rush to him, wrap her arms around him, and pretend that the outside world didn't exist the way it had once been, back when they thought the Imperials would reclaim the dungeon and they needed every second they stole.

  But there was no fondness in her eyes now.

  "Hello, Dane."

  Amelia didn't hesitate once the guard left. She crossed the cell in a few quiet steps and sat beside him on the stone slab, close enough that their knees touched. The familiar warmth of her shoulder brushing his was enough to make his heart stumble. She let herself lean into him for a breath before she pulled back, as if catching herself in a moment that belonged to another life.

  For a while, she said nothing. Her fingers traced idle circles against the lines in the slab. Then, softly she said: "When we first met… I didn't get to choose."

  Her voice wasn't accusing. It wasn't angry. It was worn, quiet, honest in a way that felt heavier than any blade she'd ever lifted.

  "You were kind. That's what made everything confusing. You treated me better than anyone had in years... maybe ever. You tried so hard to make me feel like an equal, but it didn't change the truth of what I was when we started. You had all the power. I had none. And even if you regretted it, even if you hated the position it put me in… it still shaped everything."

  She breathed out slowly, like pushing the words free hurt.

  "I was your slave, Dane. Because you thought it was a fate better than death. Not because you're cruel. But because that's where life dropped me. And no matter how hard you tried to make it different, that's the foundation everything else grew out of."

  She leaned her head back against the wall, eyes closing.

  "I used to tell myself that it didn't matter. That kindness erased the past. The way you looked at me made everything fair. But it didn't. I didn't notice it back then because I was drowning, and you were the only hand reaching toward me. You saved me. You gave me space and strength and a future." Her voice grew smaller. "And because of that… I never really stopped following your lead."

  Her fingers brushed his knee, light as a thought, and lingered there.

  "I didn't love you because I chose you. I loved you because I was caught in your gravity. Your momentum. You're a storm, Dane. You move, and people get swept up with you. You don't mean to take anything from anyone. You don't even realize you're doing it. But I lost too much of myself in that storm. I didn't know who I was without you, and I even chose you over my own family."

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  She finally turned to look at him, eyes bright but refusing to spill tears.

  "When you were gone for those ten years, I grew. I recovered by myself. I built pieces of myself I didn't even know existed. And then… when we saw each other again, all of that vanished. I snapped right back into the girl who needed you to breathe, and I hated how easy it was."

  Her voice cracked, just once.

  "I can't go back to being someone who only feels whole when she's next to you. I don't want to disappear into your shadow. Not again. Not after everything I fought for."

  She drew in a breath, steadying herself.

  "I'm not walking away because I stopped loving you. I'm walking away because I never learned how to love you without giving up pieces of myself. And I want to… I want to learn who I am without the weight of my past pulling me into your orbit."

  Her hand slid away from his knee, fingers curling into her palm.

  "I don't want to lose you," she whispered. "I just can't lose myself again to keep you."

  Her words settled into him like sinking stones. He stared at the floor for a long moment, jaw working, chest tightening around something too large to swallow. Dane wasn't a man who argued with truth, and everything she had said was true. It stung because it was honest. It stung because she was brave enough to say it.

  And even knowing all that, he still felt something crack inside him.

  He nodded, slow and somber. The nod a man gives when he understands a thing completely and hates it anyway.

  "I know," he murmured. "I know you're right."

  His hands, scarred and calloused, folded awkwardly in his lap, that tiny gesture somehow making him look smaller than she'd ever seen him. He swallowed hard, throat tight.

  "You deserved a choice back then," he said quietly. "You deserved a life that didn't start with chains. And I… I didn't know how to fix it."

  His thoughts snarled against themselves.

  Shut up. Stop talking. Don't tell her any of this. Let her go. Don't make it harder for her.

  But something in him pushed back, the part that hurt, the part that trusted, the part that refused to hold back his emotions with her.

  "I don't want you to disappear," he said, voice rough. "I don't want you to lose yourself again. I don't ever want you to feel small next to me."

  A breath shuddered out of him.

  Stop. Stop. Don't say the next thing. Don't tell her what you actually feel. Don't put that weight on her.

  He looked up anyway.

  "But please… don't go."

  The words left him before he could stop them, bare and broken and embarrassingly human. He hated himself for saying them. Hated that he couldn't hold that line between acceptance and want. Hated how easily she could pull the truth out of him just by sitting close.

  "I know I don't get to ask you that," he went on, quieter now, ashamed. "I know you need space. I know you need to find yourself without me shadowing everything."

  He forced a thin smile, the kind that didn't reach his eyes.

  "But losing you…" He exhaled shakily. "It feels like something I'm not ready for."

  His thoughts screamed over him, angry and bitter and protective:

  She doesn't want your real feelings. She doesn't want your begging. She wants space, Dane. Shut up. Stop talking. Don't trap her with your pain. Just nod. Let her walk.

  But he couldn't stop. Not with her sitting beside him. Not after everything they went through. It was hard being on the other end of time dialation and feeling the other person grow while only a short time had passed for yourself.

  "You're the only person," he said quietly, "who's ever made me feel like I had something more than just the next mission. Like I was… allowed to be something else. That's why it's hard. That's why this hurts."

  His voice dropped to a whisper, pained and restrained.

  "I don't want to lose that. I don't want to lose you."

  He dragged a hand over his face, ashamed of how much he was saying... ashamed of how much he meant it.

  "But if you walk out of here and that's what you need… I'll stand back. I'll let you go. I won't pull you into anything again."

  His voice cracked just slightly.

  "I just needed you to know that I want you to stay."

  For a long moment, she said nothing. Just watched him as if memorizing the shape of his pain, the tremor under the words he'd been brave enough to give her. Something softened in her expression, something that hurt worse than anything she'd said so far.

  Then she reached out.

  Her hand moved slowly, almost hesitantly, before her fingers brushed his cheek. The touch was warm, trembling. She cupped his face the way someone does when they're steadying themselves more than the person they're touching.

  He inhaled sharply, eyes closing at the contact. He hadn't realized how much he missed being touched like that.

  She shifted closer. This moment would always be in his memory, the flowers beneath the faint trace of sandalwood that clung to her skin. Her thumb stroked the line of his jaw, soft and tender, and then she leaned forward.

  The kiss hit him like being pulled into a current he'd tried not to acknowledge.

  It was deep. Hungry. Not desperate, but full of a year's worth of swallowed words and a decade's worth of longing. Her hand slid behind his neck, pulling him into her, and he responded without thinking, without restraint, without the fear that usually kept him locked behind walls.

  For a moment, they became all the versions of themselves they used to be, and all the versions they might have been if the world had been kinder.

  She broke the kiss first. Just enough to rest her forehead against his, her breath shaking against his lips. Her eyes were closed, and he could feel the war inside her, every part of her wanting to stay pressed against him, every part of her forcing herself to remember why she couldn't.

  Her voice came out as a whisper, warm on his mouth:

  "Goodbye, Dane."