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Z’leni kneels at my side. He raises his hand and brushes a stray hair from my face, tucking an ash and soot-streaked curl behind my ear.

“You were the light in the tunnels, Elara. I followed, even when I wanted to give up.”

His words slice into my heart and take root. The walls I built in the darkness fall away now that there’s nothing left to fight but the ache in my chest.

“I only made it because you both never let go,” I whisper. “Even when I wanted to give up, you didn’t.”

Ryatuv shifts closer, and Z’leni leans in, and I’m surrounded. Not trapped, held. Safe.

For the first time since my secret mission unraveled, I’m not running. Not surviving, not proving, not searching for who I am. I know.

I’m theirs. And they’re mine.

I press my forehead to Ryatuv’s. Z’leni’s hand curves around the back of my neck. The heat of the twin suns blends with their warmth, sinking into my skin, into my bones, until I don’t know where one of us ends and the others begin. I smile through the burn in my throat.

“We don’t have a bed,” I say with a watery laugh. “Or a roof. Or clean clothes.”

Ryatuv kisses my cheek. “We have sand, sky and each other.”

Z’leni’s voice is thick with emotion. “We’ll build everything else.”

I believe him. I know these two will take care of me and I will do the same for them.

Their lips meet mine in turn. Soft and reverent, not rushed. The way you kiss someone you never thought you’d get to touch again. I open for them, let their love pour into me, and give mine back. We don’t speak. We don’t need to.

The three of us are together beneath the suns, beneath the red streaked sky of this wild and dangerous world. And for once, there is no battle left to fight.

Only this. Only love. Only this beginning.

Z’leni’s mouth finds mine first—soft, searching, a brush of restrained need. Then Ryatuv’s, hungrier, certain, claiming. His fingers tangle in my hair as Z’leni’s travel lower to the curve of my waist, the dip of my spine.

Their hands and lips ground me. Worship me. Love me.

We fall together onto the sand, tangled and breathless. I lie between them, hearts thudding beneath each of my hands—one Zmaj, one Urr’ki. I trace their scars, the soot-streaked lines of muscle and grit and sacrifice. These bodies have bled for me, burned for me, endured because of me.

And now they’re mine to cherish.

“I need to feel you,” I whisper, voice thick with longing.

Z’leni cups my face.

“You will. Every part of us,” he whispers in my ear.

Ryatuv leans in, pressing a line of kisses down my neck.

“We’ve waited long enough,” he says.

Z’leni’s hand finds the fastening at my waist, but he pauses. “You’re sure?”

“Yes,” I say without hesitation, turning into his touch. “I’ve never been more sure of anything. Are you? Both of you?”

He smiles and I swear the stars would fall to see it. He looks at Ryatuv and for the briefest of moments we hang in the balance. A razor’s edge between an us and it all falling apart. Ryatuv’s tail twitches, flinging sand. The tension rises but right as it’s about to cut through the intensity of the moment, Ryatuv nods.

Then they undress me—together.

Their fingers are reverent as they peel the grime and ash from my body. Every motion is slow, deliberate. My shirt comes away, followed by the rest, until the suns kiss my bare skin and I shiver beneath the heat and the weight of their gaze.

They pause.