Page 131 of The Heart Trials

Serafina.

Mae.

Miss Omon.

The others.

I’ve clung to the belief that being in love is a liability. That it’s better to keep people at a distance, to not need, to not ache. Because the cost of experiencing love fully is loss, and loss is unbearable.

I haven’t wanted to ask myself the question—what happens if I chose Caelus? Not just with my words, but with my heart. What does that do to my world? What does that do to the others I want to protect?

But the question stirs in me sharply like a cramp I can’t ignore.

Proof my heart does choose him.

And I’ve just been denying it to myself.

I can’t unfeel it. I don’t want to. Now I’m supposed to walk away? Leave Caelus behind. As he stands here showing me something in my bones I think I’ve always known—true love, real love, isn’t a bargain. It doesn’t twist or demand or change. Love involves sacrifice. Making room in the heart. Whether it’s for my parents, another human, or a prince carrying the weight of the world on his back. How can I leave here and pretend none of what he and I shared mattered—when for the first time it feels like love could be the thing I was made for.

It did.

He does.

“The ship will drop you at the nearest land,” he says. “I’ve loaded it with goods—things you can trade or sell.” He presses a heavy pouch into my hands. “And there’s this.”

Gold.

I barely look at it, my fingers closing around the pouch to set it aside. I look for him. I search for his storm-ravished eyes. Today they are bright, like hope.

“What happens to you?” I whisper.

His jaw slacks, his eyes tilted slightly with sadness. “Don’t worry about that.”

“I want to worry about that.”

“You don’t.”

“I do.”

He looks at me. “Axira, what are you doing? I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

I don’t either. But I have to try. I smooth my cheeks, wiping away the last of my tears, but they’ve left a tender heat behind. I attempt to think, to untangle the knots swelling in my chest, but it’s like grasping air.

Caelus has told me that he loves me.

Twice.

And I’ve never said it back.

I’ve thought it. In a fleeting moment. In silence. In regret. But saying it out loud would make it real. Permanent. It would mean I can’t pretend this was just a moment. How do I leave here without him knowing the truth—that I love him too? That true love, real love, our kind of love, is worth making space for.

But then, how do I say those three words—and have nothing change?

I swallow hard. “Caelus.” I think of Serafina. Her fierce spirit. I would give anything to hear her laugh and play freely with as much excitement as she feels. To feel her arms around my neck a second time. I’d give up the ship, my future.

Love didn’t put everything at risk.

It showed me what mattered.