We walked out together. Behind us, I heard Hessa say something quiet to her crew, and the hammers didn’t resume until we were past the door.
Outside, the light was different, the forge’s orange glow replaced by the gray afternoon, cooler air against my face. The soldiers’ eyes tracked us from the perimeter, the careful non-stare of people who weren’t going to look directly at the Fae heir but couldn’t help watching the edge of the scene.
He led me south along the treeline.
The path ran between old oaks whose roots had lifted the stone paving in places. Where the trees thinned, the lake came into view, wide and natural, silver in the afternoon light. Through the trees to the east, the geometry of Drakken’s army camp was visible.
This whole corner belonged to the House of Leo. It made no difference. The heirs moved freely through each other’s territory, soldiers standing for any heir the same way they stood for their own. That was the Zodiac Covenant.
Aelindor’s security detail trailed at a distance, just within sight, close enough to matter, far enough to pretend otherwise. I’d nearly stopped noticing them.
“Is there anything you require, sir?”
He stopped. Turned and looked at me with his full attention.
“Why the sudden distance, Max?”
“You sought me out,” I said. “You must need something.”
“I sought you out because I miss you. I want to spend time with you whenever I can. That’s all.”
My heart skipped. I told myself firmly that this was not possible, that I was misreading it, that?—
“But what about your girlfriend?” I asked.
He blinked. “Girlfriend?”
“Lady Vaelith.”
A faint smile ghosted the corner of his mouth.
“You think Lady Vaelith is my lover?”
“Isn’t she?” I heard the defensiveness in my own voice and couldn’t take it back.
“Why would you think that?”
“She’s stunning,” I said. “She appears at your side and whispers in your ear, and you listen to her like nothing else in the room exists. She looks at you like—” I stopped. “She’s stunning,” I said again, because the rest of it was too much to say out loud.
“So are you.”
I blinked at him.
“She has everything I’m lacking,” I said. “History with you. Your world, your language, your kind of beauty.” I looked at the path. “I was a mine rat, a slave.”
“You aren’t lacking, Max.” His voice was quiet and precise. “And you’re no longer a slave. You’re one of a kind. There is no comparison to make.”
I kept looking at the path.
“You don’t need to feel insecure,” he said. “If I’ve made you feel small at any point, I’m sorry. I haven’t let anyone close in a very long time, long enough that I’ve lost the habit of showingmy feelings properly. I don’t always know how to make someone feel?—”
“You make me feel,” I said. The words came out before I’d cleared them. “You don’t need to put any effort into it. Anything you give me is enough.”
The back of his knuckles brushed my cheek, and that was all it took. The current moved through me, straight inward, pooling low, settling in my molten core. I leaned into it, just barely, and felt him go very still.
Then he dropped his hand, and the loss of contact was almost obscene.
“Lady Vaelith is my spymaster. She reports directly to me. She’s been embedded in the Pallid Court, close to the White Witch’s inner circle, and she came back when the intelligence became critical.”
