Brohm bursts into laughter while Tali gasps with delighted betrayal. “You are in love with Miss Rose?”
Khaivor closes his eyes briefly like someone enduring physical suffering.
Vi looks delighted by this development. “Oh, this is wonderful.”
“You are all exhausting,” Khaivor mutters.
Tali beams up at him. “Does that mean you are staying forever?”
The room quiets unexpectedly after the question.
Khaivor opens his eyes slowly and then looks directly at me.
“If she will have me,” he says under his breath.
The answer lands harder than it should.
Sylvi makes a suspiciously emotional noise before immediately pretending she did not.
Brohm wraps an arm around her waist. “You are crying.”
“I am not.”
Tali looks thoroughly delighted by the entire situation.
I escape before any of them can continue tormenting me.
Outside,evening settles slowly across town. Lanterns glow warmly above the streets while laughter drifts from the brewery where Vi and Brohm prepare for reopening night.
I stop beside the lakeshore.
The water has finally calmed fully since the festival. No violent resonance. No trembling docks. Only soft waves rolling against repaired wood beneath the fading gold sky.
Footsteps approach quietly behind me.
“You fled,” Khaivor says.
“They are unbearable.”
He sighs ,“They are correct though.”
Heat rises instantly into my face again.
He steps beside me near the shoreline railing. Wind shifts through his silver braids softly while evening lantern light catches against the darker bronze of his skin.
For a moment neither of us speaks.
Then quietly, “You are worried.”
I exhale slowly. “People are already hearing stories.”
“Yes.” he nods.
“What happens when more than travelers arrive?”
Khaivor rests both forearms against the railing beside me.
“I spent years believing the world only takes from people like us,” he says after a long silence. “So I kept moving before anything mattered enough to lose.”
