“Yes.”
“Good.”
The word softens in his voice, and I understand the relief beneath it. We survived. Not all of us, but enough.
We remain where we are, watching the city breathe.
After a time, he speaks again. “You believe him.”
It is not a question.
“Yes,” I say.
“The king,” he adds, though it is unnecessary.
“I do.”
He shifts slightly, turning his head to look at me more fully. “Because you can tell when people are lying?”
“That is part of it.”
“And the rest?”
I turn my gaze back to the city, observing the slow movement of patrols and the faint pulse of distant light.
“He did not attempt to persuade me,” I say. “He spoke only what he believed to be true.”
Pax hums softly, considering that. “Yeah. That sounds about right.”
A brief pause follows. “And her?” he asks.
I know who he means. The human.
Chelsea May.
“I have not encountered another like her,” I say.
“That’s putting it mildly,” Pax says, and I hear his smirk.
I glance at him again. “You called her ‘sunny.’”
He exhales a quiet breath, almost a laugh. “Yeah. That fits.”
The word does not fully encompass what I observed. There is warmth in her, certainly, but it is more than that. Her presencealters the space around her in subtle ways. Where tension has gathered, it disperses. Where unease has settled, it lifts. It is not naïveté, nor is it weakness. It is something else entirely. Something I do not yet have the language to define.
“She changed him,” I say.
Pax tilts his head. “In a good way?”
“Yes.”
There is no hesitation in the answer.
He studies me for a moment, then nods. “That’s a relief. He needs to be a good guy if we’re going to support him being the king of all this again.”
I nod but keep my thoughts to myself for now. I’m not sure that’s what the king plans. While I believe he wants to stop the queen, it is likely that so many years outside of the realm and living a happy life will have changed him irrevocably.
The quiet returns, easier now.
