Sten
My heart squeezed so hard it almost hurt.
Yours.
The word settled straight into my soul.
Outside, fireworks exploded across the skies of Asgarheim while enchanted music drifted upward from the courtyards below announcing the official beginning of the Spring Equinox Festival.
I pressed the note tightly against my chest.
And for the first time in my life—I felt like maybe destiny was finally looking back at me.
Chapter 19-Amrin
I slid my feet into a pair of wedge heels and paused in front of the mirror, suddenly wondering if I’d need a coat.
Outside my dormitory window, the skies above Asgarheim churned with silver-green auroras where the ley lines crossed through the multiverse.
The Spring Equinox Festival had awakened the realm fully tonight. I could feel it in the air itself.
Magic.
Expectation.
Fate.
The entire Institute practically vibrated with it.
Before I could even decide whether to grab a sweater, the dress reacted.
I gasped softly as the fabric shimmered against my skin.
Heat spread slowly through the material, warm and comforting rather than stifling, and then the skirts began to shift and separate beneath my fingertips like living moonlight.
Layers of enchanted fabric unfolded elegantly around my shoulders until a cloak draped itself down my back in cascading midnight blue folds.
“Oh my gods.”
I turned slowly toward the mirror.
The back of the cloak glittered beneath the dormitory lights.
Moths.
Dozens of them.
Lunar moths embroidered in silver thread and pale glowing blues, their wings stretched wide across the fabric like celestial guardians watching over me.
Beautiful.
Delicate.
Alive somehow.
And instantly I was touched by the fact he remembered what I told him, and he turned my past trauma into something beautiful.
I smiled as Sten’s voice echoed through my memory.
