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He makes a note, but his expression has shifted to something gentler. “Next question. What do you desire most?”

This one’s harder. Desire feels dangerous, selfish. “I don’t know.”

“The trial won’t accept I don’t know, Ash. It will keep probing until you break.”

I close my eyes, trying to reach past the careful walls I’ve built. “Belonging.” The word comes out like a prayer I didn’t know I needed to say. “I want to belong to people who’ve seen me at my worst and still want me around when I’m better.”

“Even with your power? Your responsibilities?”

“Especially with them.” The words slip out before I can stop them. “I want someone—fuck, multiple someones—who look at all of it.” My voice cracks with want. “The crown, the thorns, the impossible choices that’ll probably break me. And still say ‘yes, her, even broken, even impossible, we choose her.’“

My desire doesn’t diminish me. It defines me. And I’m done apologizing for the shape of my heart.

When I open my eyes, his gaze holds something that makes my spine straighten. His thumb traces across his lower lip again, and I realize he’s been doing it this whole conversation—every time I say something that makes him want to close the distance between us.

“The trial will ask about specific attachments,” he says quietly. “About us. About what we mean to you.”

Blood pounds in my ears. “What kind of questions?”

“Which bond do you trust least, and why? What would you sacrifice to protect those you love? How do you reconcile divided loyalties?”

Each question hits like a physical blow. “I assumed they’d force me to rank you. To choose between you based on political necessity.”

“Possibly.” He leans forward, honey-colored eyes intense. “Which is why we need to examine these feelings now, while you have time to understand them.”

“I can’t choose between you.” The admission comes out raw, unfiltered. “It’s not tactical analysis—it’s just... I can’t fucking rank what you each mean to me. But I thought... I assumed I’d have to.”

“Then don’t. But understand why you can’t. Understand what each connection offers that the others don’t.”

The next hour becomes the most emotionally raw conversation of my life.

“Tell me about Kieran,” Finnian says, and there’s only the faintest tightness around his eyes to betray how much the question costs him. His thumb drags across his lip again, slower this time.

“He sees the darkness in me and isn’t afraid. When I’m with him, I don’t have to pretend to be softer than I am. He matchesmy intensity, challenges it, makes it feel like strength instead of flaw.”

As I explain what Kieran offers, frost patterns bloom across the manuscript between us—my magic remembering his touch even here.

“And physically?”

The blunt question makes me squirm. “He makes me feel powerful. Desired. Like he’d burn down kingdoms just to touch me.”

“Is that what you want? To be desired like that?”

“Part of me, yes. The part that’s spent my whole life being useful instead of wanted.” I meet his gaze steadily. “The part that never believed anyone could want me for myself instead of what I could do for them.”

Something shifts in his expression. “And what about me? What do I offer that he doesn’t?”

The question hangs between us, weighted with vulnerability. His thumb moves to his bottom lip again, unconscious and devastating.

“You see who I could become,” I say quietly. “Kieran accepts who I am, darkness and all. But you... you see potential in me I didn’t know existed. You make me want to be worthy of the faith you have in me.”

When I describe what Finnian means to me, those frost patterns warm to gold, the pages themselves responding to the truth of my words.

“Faith?”

“In my mind. My judgment. My ability to learn and grow and be more than just a weapon.” My voice goes soft. “You’re the first person who ever made me feel intelligent instead of just lethal.”

Air catches in Finnian’s throat. Just for a second. But in that pause is everything—unspoken desire, belief, guilt. A war he’s been fighting with himself since the moment we met. His thumbtraces his lip again, and I’m suddenly fixated on his mouth, on the way he does that when his control wars with hunger.