The village had quieted again.

  After the morning’s bustle — fruit stalls wheeled away, goats herded home, children shrieking around muddy corners — Gale found himself walking alone, his boots sinking into earth softened by last night’s storm.

  He’d stormed into the apothecary like a thundercloud and left with a new title and two fewer illusions. Emaen hadn’t coddled him — she never did — but somehow, she’d still managed to leave him steadier than before.

  He took the long way back to Veltryn House. If pressed, he might’ve claimed he was giving her time. In truth, he needed a moment more — not to calm down, but to brace himself for whatever came next.

  He reached the top of the path just in time to see the carriage pulling away.

  Its wheels crunched over gravel, the horses snorting in the heat. The royal crest glinted briefly in the sun — that polished lie Nyvara had mocked so viciously — before vanishing down the road.

  No one waited by the entrance. No figures stood in shadowed alcoves. Just silence, and the faintest lingering trace of perfume.

  Gale stood still.

  No one came to greet him, no voice called his name. The windows of Veltryn House remained shuttered and blind. Somewhere behind one of those windows, he thought, a woman was sitting with her head in her hands — or pacing — or pretending not to break.

  The door creaked open at last.

  Fran stepped out, hair loose around her face, hands smudged with dust and stone. She was wearing the same dress as that morning, but her expression had changed — something drawn tight behind her eyes, some wire stretched too far.

  “I saw the carriage,” he said.

  She nodded, once. “She’s gone.”

  A pause. Then he offered gently, “I could make lunch. There’s still some bread. Tomatoes from the market. Even a peach or two, if you haven’t stolen them all again and blamed the cats.”

  But Fran shook her head. “No. Not now.”

  That was enough. He didn’t press.

  Instead, he crossed the distance between them — slow steps, careful — and asked the only question that mattered: “What happened?”

  Fran glanced over her shoulder, toward the open door. Something flickered across her face, too fast to name. She looked back at him. “Nothing I didn’t already suspect,” she said. “She just said it all out loud.”

  And with that, the silence between them shifted — no longer empty, but waiting.

  They walked through the old house in silence, their footsteps soft against the worn stone. Light pooled in the main hall from the high windows, pale and warm, but neither of them stopped there. Fran led him past the stairs, through the corridor, toward the back of the house—until they reached the salon.

  It was quiet here. Cooler. The heavy curtains had been drawn back, and the breeze stirred the white linen cloth still draped across the unused table.

  She didn’t sit. Just stood near the hearth, arms crossed loosely, eyes fixed on the cold fireplace as if it might offer clarity.

  Gale watched her a moment, then leaned against the doorway with a tired sigh. “She called me a lapdog, you know.”

  Fran glanced up, one brow arched. “Did she?”

  “Oh yes,” he said, with the long-suffering air of someone wrongfully slandered in their prime. “A tame little wizard who follows you around wagging his tail and knocking over the candlesticks.”

  “Well,” Fran murmured, brushing dust off her sleeve, “you do shed.”

  He pressed a hand to his chest, mock-wounded. “Cruel. And after I slaved away for hours to regain my dignity.”

  “Did you succeed?”

  “Not remotely.” He pushed off the wall and crossed to her, stopping just short of touching. “I tried to complain about it to Emaen.”

  Fran gave a small smile. “That went well, I imagine.”

  “She and Namos laughed so hard they nearly choked,” he said flatly. “And then, to make things worse, she gave me a new title.”

  Fran narrowed her eyes. “Do I want to know?”

  He held up a hand, solemn. “I am, from this day forward, officially recognized in the northern territories as Master Sorbet.”

  There was a beat of silence. Then Fran, very calmly, said, “I... beg your pardon?”

  “You remember Nyvara’s charming little dessert insult?”

  “Vividly.”

  He grinned. “Well, Emaen promoted me. Said it suits me. Sweet, overcomplicated, and cold under pressure.”

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  Fran snorted. “That’s not a promotion. That’s a slander wrapped in a dessert.”

  Fran laughed—an actual laugh, quick and sharp and utterly unexpected. She shook her head, brushing hair from her face, but the sound lingered, warming the room like late sunlight.

  “I still prefer Portashaft the Unclothed,” she said. “More honest.”

  “That was a slander. And entirely unproven.”

  “You told me you once relocated a palace into a desert. Naked.”

  “Details.”

  They stood there, smiles fading into something quieter, something older. Fran stepped toward the window, one hand resting on the sill, gaze far away. Gale remained where he was, but the silence between them now felt like breath being held.

  “A healer and a headmaster,” Fran said softly. “Lurking in a library.”

  Gale tilted his head. “Something would’ve happened anyway. Sooner or later.”

  “Something.” Her voice was thoughtful. “But not this.”

  He approached her again, slower this time. “And what is this, exactly?”

  Fran glanced sideways. “A catastrophe.”

  “Mm,” he agreed. “A diplomatic scandal.”

  “A risk.”

  “A damn good story.”

  She turned to face him. “A mess.”

  “A partnership,” he said, and this time there was no sarcasm in it. “A war. A hearth. A kiss. A plan. A thousand things I didn’t believe in before I met you.”

  Fran looked at him as if seeing him for the first time.

  “What do you want it to be?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer right away. Just reached into the inner pocket of his coat, pulled something small and silver from the folds.

  The ring caught the light—a simple band, modestly worked, with a single blue sapphire nestled in its center like a drop of deep ocean. No engraving. No crest. Just quiet intention.

  Gale held it between two fingers. No fumbled speeches this time. No candles or music. Just him. Steady, certain, offering the same question with none of the artifice. His voice was steady and low.

  “Marry me.”

  Fran stared at the ring for a heartbeat. Then another.

  He didn’t repeat himself.

  No coaxing, no pleading, no promises of eternity—just truth. Just him, standing in a quiet room with the windows open and the sky changing color behind him, offering not magic or marvels, but something harder: himself.

  For a long moment, she didn’t move.

  She hadn’t cried in the cellar. Hadn’t raged or recoiled. There’d been no reason — none of it was hers. She had listened, steady and silent, while someone else’s pain spilled out across old stone and wine-stained air. But now, her throat tightened — not with sorrow, or fear, or duty. With something far more dangerous. Hope.

  He was asking her—not because she was a duchess, or a legacy, or Alric’s heir. But because she was Fran. And because he was Gale.

  She took the ring from his hand.

  Slipped it onto her finger—left hand, third finger, like the old superstitions said.

  Then she stepped close. Touched his face.

  And kissed him.

  It wasn’t urgent or showy or desperate. It wasn’t even a question. Just the kind of kiss that said I’m here. I’ve always been here. Now let’s begin.

  When they parted, she didn’t look away.

  “Yes,” she said, simply.

  The bedroom was quiet.

  Not the haunted silence of those first nights at Veltryn, when each room still echoed with ghosts and guilt, nor the muffled emptiness that had settled between them since Nyvara arrived. This was something softer. Something earned. The sort of quiet that only made room for the creak of bedsheets, the low murmur of laughter against skin, and the occasional rustle when one of them shifted to pull the other closer.

  Fran was on her back, breath still shallow, lips parted. Her hair had come loose hours ago, the last pin somewhere beneath the pillows. Gale lay beside her, one arm draped across her waist, mouth pressed to the hollow just below her collarbone.

  “So,” she said, voice hoarse and dry, “how many engagement nights start with political despair and end with someone licking wine off someone else’s thigh?”

  He groaned softly, face still buried against her skin. “It was good wine.”

  “It was my wine.”

  “I improved it.”

  Fran made a low sound, equal parts exhausted and pleased. Her hand slid through his hair. “I should’ve known. It wasn’t the magic or the charm. You were seducing me with culinary foreplay.”

  “What can I say? Some spells are best served warm,” he grinned against her skin. “And I did win a title for it.”

  “Oh yes.” She turned to nuzzle his ear. “Master Sorbet.”

  He winced. “Can we not call me that in bed?”

  “I thought you liked titles.”

  “I liked Archmage. I can live with Disaster in Velvet. But Master Sorbet sounds like I’m about to duel someone with a ladle.”

  She snorted. “Better than Portashaft.”

  “That one is earned,” he muttered.

  “Oh yes.” She stretched, lazy and merciless. “You teleported a noble estate into the middle of a desert.”

  “I still maintain it was a partial displacement.”

  “You displaced a tower, a ballroom, three wine cellars, and the entire east wing.”

  “It was an architectural masterpiece. The sand only added character.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “And yet the Society revoked your portal license.”

  He groaned. “And you gave me a title.”

  “Archmage Portashaft the Unclothed. A classic.”

  “I hate you.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  He glared at her with theatrical venom. “I should revoke your naming privileges.”

  “You already tried.” She leaned in, lips brushing his ear. “But I’m still calling you that. Especially when you’re naked and wrong.”

  “You're enjoying this far too much, Dove,” he rolled on top of her in one fluid, smiling motion. “So allow me to demonstrate how wrong I can be.”

  She made a strangled sound that might have been a laugh. Or a warning. “You’re insatiable.”

  “And you,” he whispered, pressing his mouth to the hollow of her throat, “are in love with a catastrophe.”

  “Undeniably.”

  He looked up. “Say it again.”

  “You’re a catastrophe.”

  “No, the other part.”

  She paused. Looked at him. Really looked at him. Pale eyes, tousled hair, bare skin dotted with sweat and freckles and old scars. Her ring—the simple band with the deep blue stone—was still on her finger. It caught the low light as she lifted her hand and brushed it over his cheek.

  “I love you.”

  He closed his eyes, just for a moment. When he opened them again, he looked like the man she’d once found impossible. And now, completely hers.

  “Good,” he murmured, “because I intend to be entirely unmanageable for the rest of our lives.”

  She grinned. “I’d expect nothing less.”

  They kissed again—slower this time, less a promise than a question already answered. Her legs wrapped around him, lazy and possessive, and he let himself sink into the space she made for him.

  For a while, there were no words. Only heat, and closeness, and the quiet sounds that filled the spaces between one breath and the next.

  And then—

  “My stomach just growled,” Fran said, voice muffled by his shoulder.

  He froze. “Seriously?”

  “We skipped lunch. And I threw away breakfast.”

  “Damn it.” He pulled back with a sigh. “So now it’s dinner.”

  She nodded solemnly. “And your new fiancée is starving.”

  “I suppose I should cook something.”

  She poked his side. “Suppose?”

  “I will cook something.” He rolled to the side, still catching his breath. “Something perfect. And celebratory. And absolutely not involving sausages.”

  She burst out laughing and buried her face in the pillow. “Gods. Never sausages again.”

  “Agreed.”

  They lay there, tangled and tired and utterly content.

  Outside, the sun had long since dipped below the hills, and somewhere in the kitchen, a forgotten peach was probably being chewed by a cat who had no idea that the world had just changed.