Page 200 of Daughter of the Serpent

Her heart crashed against her ribs.

"Hjalmarr?" she breathed, scarcely daring to believe it.

Before she could stop herself, her body moved - running, shoving through the crew. She grabbed at his sleeve, fingers clutching the worn fabric like a lifeline.

When his eyes met hers - blue and steady, so familiar - the breath wrenched from her lungs altogether.

Without thinking, without caring how it looked, she threw her arms around him. Her chest heaved against his, a desperate, shuddering inhale - needing the solidity of his body to believe he was real. He stiffened at first, rigid with surprise. But then, slowly his arms came around her.

"I thought you were reassigned," she whispered, her voice raw.

She pulled back just enough to see his face, to be sure -reallysure - it was him. Not a dream. Not some cruel trick.

"That they punished you. Sent you away."

His gaze met hers, steady, and in that single moment, the weight of all her unshed emotion caught in her throat. He was here. Whole. Unharmed.

How long had she worried over him, and what the temple might have done. How long she had sought to discover any news, any morsel of what had become of him, or where he had gone.

“How are you here?”

He tilted his head, and his eyes flicked toward Axel.

"Your teacher..." he said, with a rough smile, "has a way of persuading people."

She blinked, confused.

Axel did this?

The world seemed to tilt, everything she thought she knew shifting beneath her feet.

"I’m so sorry, Hjalmarr," she breathed, the words tumbling out in a rush. "That night... I should’ve never left. I should’ve - "

He lifted a hand, stopping her gently.

"What’s done is done," he said. "You carry no blame. The gods weave fates as they see fit."

Tears rose. She blinked hard, but they clung to her lashes.

For just a breath, his expression softened - just enough to remind her of the guard who once slipped her one of Molly’s honey cakes when no one was looking.

"I’ll face the trials at your side." He said, his eyes brimming with a certain determination.

She shook her head, voice catching. "But... why?"

A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "Can’t let you take all the glory for yourself, can I?"

She laughed - fragile, but real. The sound cracked through the tension like sunlight. But just beneath it, the tears returned, pressing at her throat, the weight of everything unspoken swelling too big to contain.

Axel had done this.

For her.

Her throat closed up.

She wanted to scream. To sob. To rage.

Instead, she stood frozen, heart splitting open in a hundred directions at once.