Unfair.
He knows me too well. Knows that when the world tips sideways, I seek the water. Lakes. Rivers. Oceans. Anywhere the element can whisper me still. The lake sings low today. A song of weight. Of change.
“She’s remembering,” I murmur. “She always remembers.”
Water remembers.The echo of my father’s voice drifts through the air.
When I finally turn to him, he’s watching me—not demanding,just… waiting. Like he has nowhere else to be. Like he never left.
Gods, he is beautiful. Still. Always. It’s infuriating. His silver-gray eyes mirror the lake behind me, flickering with light like waves lit under a full moon. When I look at him, I see history. I see heartbreak. I see the boy who once made me laugh until I couldn’t breathe—the same one who vanished without a word.
My arms cross over my chest, an instinctive shield.
He motions to a sun-warmed rock by the water, its edges curved from years of weather. “Care to join me?”
I hesitate, then nod. We walk side by side, boots crunching on frozen sand before we settle on the warm stone edge. The rock’s heat sends up wisps of steam as it meets the chilled air and mingles with our breaths. The water breathes in and out against the rock—soft inhalations and exhalations that mirror my slowing pulse.
He breaks the silence first. “Remember when your mom found us trying to fish from our rock using her earrings as hooks?” A slight smile appears on his lips, one edge turned up, causing a single dimple to peek through.
I can’t help the small smile that answers. “I remember her being furious that we lost her diamond earring, and having to tell her that a catfish was likely swimming away with it as we spoke.”
He chuckles softly—a low, warm rumble that vibrates through me, carrying all the comfort of my childhood in it.
We fall into the rhythm of old stories. Rebuilt swings. The time he pretended to drown just to get me to jump in after him. Hunting for marbles and coins. Sunsets on my porch. His notebook sketches. Laughter and nostalgia follow, soft and genuine.
And for a moment, it’s actually easy again. My heart stirs at the comfortable familiarity of it all.
Leaning back, Gavrail tilts his face to the sun, arms behind his head, eyes closed. He looks relaxed—peaceful in a way Ihaven’t seen since we were kids. My heart aches with the memory of that boy.
Then, the shadows shift.
The evergreens above us sway, dark needles drifting in the breeze and casting mottled shapes on the snow-dusted ground. One shadow detaches—moving with purpose. It brushes over the frozen grass, then plucks a hardy winter bloom somehow still standing, roots curled in defiance of the cold. It carries it toward us with gentle, eerie grace. It stops, hovering before me, waiting—like some quiet tribute to resilience.
I sigh and shake my head. “Show-off,” I mutter, taking the flower.
The shadow coils around my arms before slinking back to the rock’s edge like a cat satisfied with its mischief.
I don’t need to look at him to picture the smirk on his face. That arrogant half-smile that used to simultaneously infuriate and undo me.
We lapse into silence again.
He sits up finally, speaking softly. “About earlier. The Grotto.”
My chest tightens. He doesn’t have to say more. I still feel it, like a velvet bruise beneath my skin. Soft but ruthless in the way it lingers. The moment our magick collided—water and shadow merging not in battle, but in instinct. In protection. In something older than both of us. Something dangerous, familiar, and so seductively powerful that for one single moment I wanted nothing else but to drown in it.
In him.
But I don’t say that.
“It wasn’t just a shield,” I say quietly. “It felt… alive. Like something else.”
“Shadowmire,” he murmurs. The word lands heavy. Like something old, weighted. “I didn’t—” He stops. His gaze cuts toward the lake, then the trees, checking with the shadows tomake sure we are alone. “It responded. Not just to me. To you.Us.”
The wordushangs in the air, suspended between possibility and danger.
He reaches over, plucking a pine needle from my hair with practiced ease. His hand lingers, fingertips grazing my temple, my cheek, before resting against my chin.
Time stops.
