“Something like that,” I murmured. “Aran and Licia were crossing the old bridge, remember?”
He let out a soft laugh. “Those idiots…”
Then he went quiet. His gaze stayed on the flower.
“You…kept it?”
I nodded, my throat tight. “I thought maybe it would bring you luck.”
He looked at me, not like a soldier, not like someone leaving for war, but like that same boy again. The one who couldn’t look me in the eye when he handed me a flower. The one who tried to show he cared in the only way he knew how.
Gods, I didn’t want to lose him. And I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering what might’ve happened if I’d just reached for him.
So I did.
He looked at me, eyes wide and still. Ocean blue, and full of things he hadn’t said yet. Gods, I could drown in those eyes.
Maybe I already had.
My fingers brushed his cheek, then curled gently along his jaw. He didn’t move. His skin was warm beneath my palm, his jaw clean cut. He was so close I could feel the heat of him.
I looked into his eyes like I was trying to memorize them. Not just the color, but the way they softened when they looked at me. The way they said what he never dared to.
I didn’t want to forget this. I couldn’t.
So I leaned in, slow and steady, and I kissed him.
It was soft at first. Hesitant. The barest press of my lips against his, like asking permission. Then his hand rose to my face, his fingers brushing my cheek, settling just beneath my jaw.
And he kissed me back.
His lips moved with mine, slow and deep, like he was trying to memorize me too. Like he was trying to hold on to something he already knew he’d have to let go of.
His thumb grazed my cheekbone. I melted into his touch, into him.
The world faded until there was only us.
Us, and a kiss that tasted like goodbye.
“Come on, lover boy!” Jorek’s voice rang out from the road. ”Let’s go.”
I would’ve stayed in that moment forever if I could.
But the world snapped back into place, and Will reluctantly pulled away. He mounted his horse and I just stood there, breathless, blinking against the sting in my eyes.
“Promise you’ll come back.”
He’d said it before, I just needed to hear it again.
Will met my eyes from the saddle.
“I will always come back to you.”
----- ?⋅?⋅? -----
We walkedto the cemetery the morning of the wake. The path was narrow and familiar, winding through the birch trees. Their white trunks rose up around us, tall and quiet, branches swaying gently overhead. The air shifted the moment we stepped under them. Cooler. Still. Like even the wind knew how to grieve.
The cemetery sat at the edge of the village, tucked into a shallow dip in the land where the trees gave way to open sky. The ground was uneven, covered in grass that had grown too long, dotted with old headstones that leaned slightly in the dirt.
