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Chapter Sixty-Three

Jasce

Annora’s arms wrap around my waist as we ride my gelding back to camp, but even her closeness can’t ease the weight crushing down on me.

The setting sun paints long shadows across the desert sand—like the shadows of my failure stretching out before us.

“I’m sorry,” Annora says against my back.

She shouldn’t be the one apologizing. I’m the one who got her hopes up, who promised her freedom, only to lead her to a corpse.

I guide my horse around a cluster of rocks, buying time before we return to camp. Before I have to face my brothers, who I encouraged to ride ahead of us.

“We’ll find another way,” I say, but the words taste like dust in my mouth.

Annora’s arms tighten around me. “You’re trying. That’s what matters.”

But trying isn’t enough.

I’ve conquered cities. United warring tribes. Built an empire from blood and ashes. And yet I can’t protect the one person who matters most.

I pull my horse to a stop near a cluster of weathered rocks, needing a moment before we return to camp.

Annora slides off first, and I follow.

She steps in front of me, her eyes finding mine. “I see that look on your face.”

“What look?”

“The one that says you’re carrying the weight of the world.” She reaches up, her thumb smoothing the furrow between my eyebrows.

“I’m supposed to be comforting you. After everything you’ve been through—”

“—I don’t want him to win anymore, Jasce.” Her voice carries steel beneath the gentleness. “I choose to be happy. I choose to thrive, and I choose to love you, and there is nothing he can do to stop me.”

The fierceness in her eyes steals my breath. This is my Annora—the one who faces darkness with light, who meets cruelty with kindness.

I cup her face in my hands, marveling at how someone who’s endured so much darkness can radiate such light. “You are extraordinary, you know that?”

“I’m just me.”

“Exactly.” I remove her veil and trace the scars on her cheek with my thumb. “And that’s what makes you extraordinary.”

A smile tugs at her lips—not the haunted one I’ve seen too often lately, but one that reaches her eyes. One that reminds me of mornings in Sharhavva when she’d sketch by the window while I pretended to read reports.

“We should head back,” she says, but makes no move to pull away.

Maybe we didn’t find what we were looking for in that cave, but I know we found something just as valuable—a reminder that our strength isn’t in breaking bonds, but in our love for each other.