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“I can’t lose you. I was so scared . . . I’m so scared, Landers.” The words came out in an unsteady stream, tears soaking into his bloody tunic.

He didn’t speak, gave me no verbal answer as his arms tightened around me.

For the very first time, I felt him break in my arms.

A sob shuddered out of his chest as he fell to his knees, his tears rolling down my neck in hot streams. I did not let go of him, only pulled him tighter, held him like he had done for me so many times.

He pulled his head from my neck, his eyes meeting mine with so much fear as my hands slid to grasp both sides of his face.

“I do not know how to keep you safe, Hyacinth. I do not know how to keep our people safe.” His voice was so thin, his tears bleeding over my fingers. “What kind of King am I if I cannot even keep my wife—my family—safe?”

“No,” I commanded, tears cutting lines through blood and grime down my cheeks, my hands shaking. “None of us, not a single one of us, would have made it this far without you. We did not suffer through the hell we’ve been through just for you to lose hope when it gets hard.”

His breath hitched as my thumbs brushed away the tears pooling in the crevice of his nose. The fading sunlight streaming through the window caught on scars we’d both earned—the jagged line across his brow that was freshly healed, the burns on my wrists from the battle at the academy.

Proof of survival etched into skin.

“You think hope is what carried me through this?” His voice cracked like parched earth. “It wasyou, Hyacinth. It was your face that has kept me alive. It was your voice whispering against the torture they pushed into my mind. It was your voice telling me that I would not break.” His palm pressed against my sternum, where my heartbeat thrummed wildly beneath his touch. “What if I am not enough to protect this? To protect you?”

I seized his wrist, pressing his fingers harder against my chest until he felt the relentless rhythm beneath. “Youare, Landers. You are so much more than enough.” The words came out in a plea, praying that he would see himself through my eyes. “You taught me that Kings, that Queens, don’t run from fear or lead from thrones, they bleed in the trenches with their people.” My lips found his knuckles, salt and iron and dirt clinging to his skin. “So we bleed together, in hopes that maybe one day, our people won’t have to.”

A broken, proud laugh escaped him, raw as an open wound as his forehead dropped to mine, our shared breaths weaving a fragile armor around us.

Rain began to hammer against the warped window panes as if the heavens felt our pain and cried beside us, cleansing the earth as we scrambled to cleanse our tortured souls. His hands slid down to grip my waist, grounding himself in the weight of me.

The rainwater traced silver veins down the glass, distorting the world beyond into something softer—a lie we both wished were true. Landers’s breathing steadied in the small space between us. When he finally lifted his face, his eyes held less storm than before.

His lips found mine and it was not gentle or careful. It was a collision of fear and unquenchable devotion. My fingers wound through the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer against me as our mouths moved desperately against each other.

He pulled back as lightning split the sky—a bright wound healing too fast as thunder shook the home’s foundation. His eyes traced my face, as if committing every detail to memory. But something in the way he studied me, in the intensity of his gaze, scared me.

Wordlessly, I stood and pulled him to his feet before turning to the bathing chamber. I guided him behind me, shouldering through the lavatory door as I flicked my fingers toward the fireplace nestled in the corner of the room. The bath filled at my silent command, healing water rising as steam poured over its surface.

I needed this, needed him.

I would give myself a moment to forget the destruction.

A second to forget the grief rupturing my organs.

I would lose myself in the arms of him, in the taste of him, the feel of him. I would let myself drink him in, memorize every inch of his scarred skin, every curve and ripple of his muscle, every glimmer in his verdant eyes.

Then, once I have devoured him, once I have filled myself with every ounce of him, I would tell him about Cain. I would tell him about the last thing Wren had said to me.

I turned to find his eyes were already on me, searing into my own with heartbreaking sincerity. My fingers drifted to the hem of his tunic, still stiff with dried blood, and slipped it over his head. Our hands worked over the other, shedding the filthy, battle-worn clothes until there was nothing left but skin on skin.

My hands slid up the grooves in his abdomen letting them take their time as they crawled toward his shoulders. He shuddered beneath my touch, his eyes fluttering closed as my fingers traced the map of scars over his chest, the regions his tattoo created that I could recognize now. So much history, so much pain and devastation was etched into his flesh.

The urge to heal every single one tugged at the veins pulsing toward my heart. I knew I could do it now, with the new magic I had, I knew I could erase that grief from his body. Instead, my mouth fell against his skin, my lips tracing over raised, rough tissue as a single tear slid down my face.

These scars built him, broke him, and formed him into the man standing before me.

And my Gods I loved this man.

His hands slid down to my waist, lifting my body into the copper bathtub as he stepped in with me. The water embraced us as we sank into its depth, the heat, the healing swirling in its depths leaching away the hurt that clung to our bodies. I reached for a cloth and began to wash the grime from his skin, each gentle stroke an act of reverence.

He caught my wrist, his grip gentle but insistent.

“Let me,” he said, his voice a whisper against the rain pouring outside these walls as he pulled the rag from my fingers.