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“You needed to sleep tonight, though.” I slid my hand down his arm to his hand, taking it in mine.

“Usually, I’m not so drained. But between the Elyria trip and the habibellum,” he groaned in frustration, “I didn’t recover fast enough for my energy to return.”

“Because you haven’t slept in two nights. You might be the strongest soturion I’ve ever met, but even you need to rest.”

He closed his eyes, giving a mirthless laugh.

“Do you—do you want to talk about it? Your nightmare?”

He frowned. “My father. My last night in Glemaria. It was,” he exhaled through his mouth, his fingers twitching in my hand, “it was not so much a nightmare as it was a memory.” He looked away.

“You remembered your mother?”

“It was my fault,” he said, almost too quietly for me to hear. “I watched. I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t…it happened so quickly. There were witnesses—a dozen sentries, his personal guard. They watched him cut her down and swore one by one that my blade had done it.”

I squeezed his hand.

“I wasn’t fast enough for her, for me—to stop this.” His eyes flicked up to his scar. “I fucked up. That night. This night.”

I leaned toward him. “You didn’t fuck anything up tonight. Or that night.”

“Yes, I did.”

“No,” I said firmly. “You didn’t. You couldn’t have saved her. Your father’s the Imperator, he stacked the deck against you. He knew how strong you were, how strong you were becoming. He knew you were growing stronger than him every single day. And he needed a dozen bought-and-paid-for sentries to stand between you and him.” I was almost yelling now, so fueled with anger and hatred for his father and so desperate for Rhyan to see how faultless he was. “What happened wasn’t your fault. It was his.”

“I tell myself that. And yet, I still feel like shit. Still have these dreams.”

“You won’t always. I don’t know when it’ll stop, but I know you won’t always feel this way.” The pain I felt for Jules hadn’t changed, but somewhere in the last few months, some of the guilt, some of the shame, had begun to lessen. To eat at me less in the moments I was alone. “But even so, Rhyan, this doesn’t make you weak,” I said gently. “You don’t always have to be the strongest one.”

He bit down on his lip. “I didn’t know it was you when I woke up.” His eyes were on my neck, his hand twitching again in mine. “Are you sure I didn’t hurt you?”

“I’m sure, I promise.”

“Let me, um,” he cleared his throat, pulling his hand away. “Let me find you an extra blanket.”

He stood from the couch, but I reached out, taking his hand back and squeezing it. “Rhyan, come to bed with me.”

His eyes widened. “What?”

“Just to sleep,” I said. “As friends.”

He shook his head, almost violently. “No. We can’t.”

“Rhyan, you need sleep. So do I. You can’t stay out here, you’ll freeze. And I will, too, if you have another nightmare. Just come with me. I’ll watch over you, wake you up if I need to.”

“Lyr,” he pleaded, his voice almost desperate. “It’s a bad idea.”

“Why? It sounds like the perfect solution.”

“Lyr, stop.” He jerked his hand away from mine. “Just go back to bed. I can’t be in there with you. I don’t trust myself right now. I’m not in a good place.”

“I trust you.”

“Well, you shouldn’t.”

“You don’t get to tell me that. I do trust you, and I’ll trust you enough for the both of us if I have to. You deserve that trust, you’ve more than earned it. As well as my friendship and my caring about you.”

“Lyr, no. If you’d seen my dreams, if you knew the horrors in my memories—I’m not good.”