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My throat tightened.

“You are the first thing I have ever chosen for myself,” he said. “The first thing I have ever wanted that was not simply survival. You are proof that I am allowed to want.”

I kissed him. I had no words big enough for what he had just given me, so I gave him this instead, my mouth against his, my hands in his hair, my body pressed against his in the dim light of a barn that smelled of hay and dust and borrowed time.

When we broke apart, his breath was ragged against my lips, and through the bond I could still taste the shape of everything he hadn't said.

“When this is over,” I said, “what do you want?”

He was quiet for a moment. His hands slid down to my waist, holding me like I might disappear.

“Mornings,” he said finally. “Ordinary, unremarkable mornings where the most important decision is whether to stay in bed another hour.”

My heart cracked.

Such a small thing. Such a human thing. After a lifetime of violence and corruption and being used as a weapon, all he wanted was mornings.

“I want to show you the estate,” he continued. “Not the parts my father poisoned. The parts that were my mother's. The garden she planted.” He paused. “The library where she taught me to read. The window seat where I would hide when I was small and the house felt too large.”

“I want to see it,” I whispered. “All of it.”

“The pendant,” he said, reaching into his pocket. His fingers closed around the hourglass that had been his mother's. “One day I will wear it again. When it no longer carries the memory of what my father made me do. When I have earned the right to something that was hers.”

“You've already earned it.”

“Not yet.” His jaw tightened. “But I will. After tonight.”

I thought about the future he was painting. Mornings in bed. His mother's garden. A library and a window seat and a life built on something other than survival.

I buried my face in his chest. Let myself breathe him in. The scent of him, the warmth of him, the solid reality of his body against mine.

“When we survive this,” I said, my voice muffled against his skin, “I want all of it. The mornings. The garden. The library. Everything.”

He pulled back just enough to look at me. His eyes were bright, fierce, burning with something that looked like hope.

“When,” he repeated. “You said when.”

“I did.”

“Not if.”

“Not if.” I held his gaze. Let him feel that I meant every word. “We are going to survive this, August Hawthorne. We are going to defeat your father and tear down everything he built and then we are going to have those mornings. All of them. Every single unremarkable one for the rest of our lives.”

He kissed me again, harder this time, more desperate, like he was sealing a promise he was afraid to speak aloud.

When we finally broke apart, he kept his forehead pressed to mine.

“Find your way back to me,” he said. His voice was rough. Raw. “Whatever happens. However the battle turns. Find your way back to me.”

I thought of everything that lay ahead. The Iron Spire. His father. The fight that would determine whether Weavers lived free or died hiding.

And I thought of after. Mornings. Gardens. A library full of books and a window seat where a boy once hid from a world too large and too cruel.

“Always,” I said. “I will always find my way back to you.”

He held me for a moment longer. Love, vast and terrifying, poured through the bond. More real than anything I had ever known.

Then, distantly, a bell rang. The signal to gather. The march was beginning.