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The frost continued to spread farther across the garden stones. Slowly, his eyes lifted to her.

“Hey.” Her voice soothed. “I am here. I am alright.”

Caelyn blinked when Elowynn moved directly in front of him.

And despite everything—despite the cold spreading through the gardens and the unstable resonance twisting beneath the city. Despite the terrifying thing waking inside him—she still looked at him so gently with those big, luminous blue eyes.

Her hand moved toward him before hesitating.

“May I touch you?” she said on a shaky breath.

The question shattered him.

Caelyn never wanted her to hesitate with him. Never wanted her to have to feel the need to ask.

He wanted—no—needed her to touch him.

Caelyn nodded once.

Carefully, Elowynn placed her fingers against his wrist. They were so warm. And their effect was immediate.

The frost stopped spreading the moment her delicate fingers touched his skin, and his eyes remained focused on hers. His erratic breathing finally eased to calmer breaths.

“Elowynn,” he whispered.

Elowynn’s expression crumpled at the sound, and tears continued falling from her beautiful eyes. Lifting his coat, he finally wrapped it around her shoulders. He breathed in her scent, filling his senses to calm him more. Parchment, herbal blooms, and ink.

“It is alright,” she said softly.

“No,” he growled, looking pained. “No, it isn’t.”

Elowynn slid her hand fully into his palm, linking her fingers with his as she stepped closer. There was only a breath of space between them, now.

Tilting her head back, she looked up—way up—into his face.

“If he ever touches you again,” he said, his voice low and certain, “I’ll tear off his stars-damned hands.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Some aches settle so deep into the soul, they begin to feel indistinguishable from love.”

— Mourning Rites Passage

Caelyn was here.

Caelyn. Was. Here.

In Veylspire.

And now she was wrapped in a coat that smelled of… him. Cedarwood, leather, and salt. Even this far from the abbey, the scent of the sea clung to him. It made her yearn for the feel of the coastal air in her hair and the mist on her skin.

When she first saw him, Elowynn thought he was a ghost. A hallucination. But he was real, and he was here.

Her fingers were woven between his, and when he vowed to kill Korvel? Well, that did things to her. Things she had no name for. Things that made her stomach flip and her chest tighten.

Things she wanted to explore further.

But not here.