Instead, I said, “Let’s walk the border so I can make sure we haven’t missed anything.”
Lilia agreed with a nod. When we reached the next anchor point, I crouched down and ran my fingers over the sigil. I told myself I was being methodical as I examined it. I’d told myself many things over the last few days.
Tell her.
The thought surfaced before I could stop it. Tell her that three weeks ago this place was nothing but silence and stone until she walked in. Tell her that watching her in the garden made the days feel less like a sentence, how the sound of her humming carried like a song in the air.
Tell her you want her to stay—to stay here of her own free will, not because you’ve forced her to.
I couldn’t do that to her. What would I be asking her to stay for? A dying gargoyle’s comfort. When she missed her family and had done so much for me without complaint.
She didn’t deserve my selfishness.
“You can go,” I said bluntly.
She turned to me. “What?”
“The reinforcements are done. Your bargain complete.” I kept my voice even. Measured. The tone I used in command when I needed soldiers to follow orders. “It will take time for the magic to weave strong enough to protect Valgarde, but your work here is done.” I couldn’t look at her face. It would be too hard to continue. “You can go home, Lilia. See your family.”
“You’re letting me leave?” she said gently, as if she was working out if she’d heard correctly.
“Yes.”
“But it hasn’t been three weeks,” she questioned with furrowed brows.
“There’s nothing further that you need to do,” I said, as though it were the most straightforward thing in the world. As if her leaving was a matter of logistics rather than something I’d been dreading since the moment I realized it was the right thing to do. “You miss your family. I’m not going to keep you from them any longer.”
When she didn’t say anything for what felt like a full minute, I turned to her and the questioning look in her eyes almost undid me on the spot. I broke eye contact to regroup. The forest had gone fully dark around us, with just the faint glow of a pale crescent moon and stars overhead. The wind moved through the hawthorn. From deeper in the woods, an owl called.
I held myself very still and bit back saying the one word that burned to erupt from my lips:stay.
“All right,” she said at last. So quietly, it was almost a whisper. “I’ll leave in the morning.”
I braved a glance at her once more.
“But I’ll return, Hadrien.”
What? I leaned back. Had I heard her correctly?I’ll return.
“I’ll visit my family and come back,” she added.
My heart pumped full of hope where dread had hardened it to near stone for days.
Would she return? Questions warred within me, optimism clashing with despair, hope and dread pulling in opposite directions until I felt cracked straight through, like stone that had taken one blow too many.
She had no reason to return to me when she could be back with her family. I had to brace myself that this was our final night together.
CHAPTER 20
LILIA
Ibarely slept.
Sleep was fractured. I told myself it was just anxiety about traveling back home tomorrow, but I knew better. This was my last night with Hadrien, and even though I’d promised him that I’d return, would I do so before it was too late?
We’d made love slowly that night. He’d touched me with a gentle reverence, looking at me from his deep gray eyes as if it might be our last time together. I’d barely held back tears, knowing it could be true.
Now, I clung onto his forearm as he held me from behind, with his massive gray arm draped protectively over my body. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm at my back, and his breathing was low and even against my hair, a rhythmic sound that lulled me. But when I’d close my eyes, the image of the poppy would appear in my mind, a ticking clock reminding me how little time we had left together.
