Page 68

“Part of me, yes. The part that’s spent my whole life being useful instead of wanted.” I meet his gaze steadily. “The part that never believed anyone could want me for myself instead of what I could do for them.”

Something shifts in his expression. “And what about me? What do I offer that he doesn’t?”

The question hangs between us, weighted with vulnerability. His thumb moves to his bottom lip again, unconscious and devastating.

“You see who I could become,” I say quietly. “Kieran accepts who I am, darkness and all. But you... you see potential in me I didn’t know existed. You make me want to be worthy of the faith you have in me.”

When I describe what Finnian means to me, those frost patterns warm to gold, the pages themselves responding to the truth of my words.

“Faith?”

“In my mind. My judgment. My ability to learn and grow and be more than just a weapon.” My voice goes soft. “You’re the first person who ever made me feel intelligent instead of just lethal.”

Air catches in Finnian’s throat. Just for a second.

But in that pause is everything—unspoken desire, belief, guilt.

A war he’s been fighting with himself since the moment we met.

His thumb traces his lip again, and I’m suddenly fixated on his mouth, on the way he does that when his control wars with hunger.

His mask doesn’t just crack. It crumbles, rebuilt instantly—but I saw it. I see him.

And gods help me, I want him too.

His composure fractures slightly. “And Orion?”

“Orion makes me feel like I could have a home. Not a place. A person. A body I can rest against without flinching, a bond that doesn’t demand I be softer or smaller.

He sees everything wild and broken in me.

.. and calls it sacred.” I trace patterns on the manuscript’s edge.

“He looks at me and sees someone who belongs.”

“Do you? Belong?”

“With him? Yes. With you? Yes. With Kieran?” I pause, trying to find words for something I’ve barely admitted to myself. “Yes. But in different ways, for different parts of myself.”

“That’s not politically sustainable,” Finnian points out gently.

“I know.” The admission tears from my chest. “I know royal marriages are political tools. I know wanting all of you seems selfish and complicated and probably impossible. But I can’t make myself stop wanting it.”

The words hang in the air like a confession I didn’t know I needed to make.

Why should I accept limitations I placed on myself?

Why should I bleed to fit into a shape I carved from my own fears?

The words hang in the air, and I watch Finnian’s careful composure crack.

His magic flares—just for a moment—warm amber light that makes the room’s shadows dance.

When it settles, he looks different. Determined in a way that makes my pulse race.

His thumb brushes across those full lips one more time before his hand drops.

“What if you didn’t have to choose? What if there was a way to have all of us?”

The question stops my heart. “Wait. Is there? I thought... I assumed royal marriages had to be singular. Political. Strategic.”

“Ancient Wild Court traditions allow for multiple consorts. Political marriages designed to balance power between courts.” His voice stays carefully neutral. “It’s not unprecedented.”

“But?”

“But it would require all parties to agree. To accept sharing. To put your happiness above territorial instincts.” He meets my gaze. “Not all men are built for that kind of arrangement.”

“Are you?”

The question slips out before I can stop it. His stare holds mine for a long moment.

“You’ve thought about this,” I realize, studying his face. “Not just academically. You’ve actually considered what it would mean.”

His hands still on the manuscript. “I spent the night examining every assumption I’ve made about love, about possession, about what I thought I wanted.

” His thumb drags across his lip again. “Turns out three hundred years of emotional control taught me everything except how to want someone without trying to own them.”

“And?”

“I discovered something rather unsettling about myself last night.” His thumb traces his lip unconsciously. “It seems I’m more interested in your happiness than my exclusivity—which perhaps says something about the nature of love I wasn’t prepared to examine.”

“Is that what you want? To love without restraint?”

“For you?” He pauses, thumb brushing across his bottom lip like he’s trying to keep dangerous words from escaping. “Yes. Even if it means sharing what I’ve never learned to share. Even if it means risking the kind of heartbreak that rewrites everything I thought I understood about wanting someone.”

“I’d rather share you than lose you,” he says quietly. “Though that may change when jealousy and possession have time to take root.”

The honesty of it steals my breath.

“The trial will expose all of this,” he continues. “Every feeling, every want, every contradiction. Are you prepared for that level of revelation?”

“No.” The word comes out smaller than intended. “I’m terrified.”

Maybe this time is different. Maybe visibility means power instead of punishment.

“Of what specifically?”

“Of hurting all of you. Of being forced to choose and destroying what we’re building. Of discovering I’m not brave enough to want what I want.” I press my hands to my face. “Of learning that loving multiple people makes me greedy instead of lucky.”

“Look at me, Ash.”

I drop my hands, meeting his intense gaze.

“Loving multiple people doesn’t make you greedy—it makes you honest about the heart’s actual capacity.

” His voice takes on that tone he uses when passionate about a subject.

“Perhaps we’ve been approaching love like scarcity economics when it operates more like.

.. renewable energy. The more you generate, the more you have to give. ”

“What if I’m not enough for any of you? What if wanting all of you means I can’t give enough to each of you?”

“Then we figure it out together.” His voice carries absolute conviction. “But that’s not today’s concern. Today’s concern is surviving a trial that will strip away every defense you have.”

The next questions come faster, more brutal.

“What’s your greatest weakness?”

“I care too much. I’ll destroy myself trying to protect people who matter to me.”

“Your greatest strength?”

“I survive. No matter what they throw at me, I adapt and survive.”

“What would you sacrifice to save those you love?”

“Anything. Everything. My crown, my power, my life—anything.”

“Including your integrity?”

That one stops me cold. “I... I don’t know.”

“The trial will know,” Finnian says quietly. “It will probe until it finds the exact point where your principles break. Where love trumps honor, or honor trumps love.”

“What’s the right answer?”

“There isn’t one. There’s only your answer, whatever it is.”

“Why do they get to decide if I’m worthy?” The question rips from somewhere primal. “Why do I have to prove myself to people who’ve spent centuries trying to erase what I represent?”

Finnian’s amber eyes sharpen. “What would you do instead?”

“I’d make them prove they’re worthy of me.”

A slow smile spreads across his face. “Now that sounds like a queen.”

By the end of three hours, I feel emotionally flayed. Every defense I’ve ever built has been examined, tested, catalogued. But instead of feeling vulnerable, I feel... clearer. Like I finally understand the shape of my own heart.

“I am not too much,” I whisper, the words feeling like an incantation. “I am a constellation this world forgot how to name.”

“You’re ready,” Finnian says, closing the manuscript.

“Am I?”

“You understand yourself now. That’s half the battle.”

“And the other half?”

“Finding the courage to speak that understanding aloud, regardless of consequences.”

He starts gathering papers, but I catch his hand, stilling him.

“Finnian. I appreciate this. For helping me understand myself. For not making me feel broken for wanting what I want.”

His fingers tighten around mine. “You’re not broken, Ash. You’re just... expansive. Some hearts are built to love widely.”

“Is yours?”

“You’re teaching me something I never learned in all my centuries of study.” His voice goes soft. “That perhaps some connections are worth the risk of complete destruction. Worth becoming someone I don’t recognize if it means becoming someone worthy of you.”

The confession hangs between us, raw and dangerous.

“Finnian...”

“We should continue,” he says, but doesn’t move to retrieve the manuscript. “The trial begins at twilight.”

“In a moment.” I lean forward, close enough to catch his scent, to see the way his pupils dilate. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Why are you helping me like this? After last night, after knowing I chose someone else—why are you still here?”

His smile turns soft, devastating. “Because this isn’t about possession—though I confess the concept held more appeal than I expected.

” His voice carries careful distance that doesn’t quite hide the emotion underneath.

“This is about seeing you survive to make whatever choices your heart demands. Even if those choices require more courage than I possess.”

Before I can respond, before I can tell him he’s breaking my heart too, Academy bells begin to toll.

Not the gentle chimes that mark class periods. The deep, resonant notes that signal gathering twilight.

Trial time approaches.

“Two hours,” Finnian says. “We should review the protocol one more time. The questions you’re most likely to face.”

But I can’t focus on trial preparation anymore. All I can think about is the man sitting across from me, whose careful distance can’t hide the depth of his devotion. Who’s spent his morning ensuring my survival even though it meant cataloguing all the ways I might choose others over him.

“Whatever truths that trial drags out of me.” I step closer, close enough to see the gold flecks in his eyes. “Whatever they make me admit about wanting all of you—know that this matters. You matter. Not as my teacher or my ally, but as... you.”

His hand stills. “Even if it’s not enough?” The question carries three centuries of careful distance finally cracking. “Even if watching you choose others breaks something in me I didn’t know could break?”

“Especially then.”

Something shifts in his expression, walls cracking to reveal hope and fear and want in equal measure. His thumb traces his bottom lip one final time, and I realize I want to be the one doing that.

“Two hours,” he says again, but his voice has gone rough.

“Two hours,” I agree.

Two hours before I discover if I can speak the truth about wanting love without limits—or if I’ll retreat back into the safe assumption that I have to choose just one.

Two hours before I discover if speaking the truth about loving without limits will free me from assumptions I didn’t know I was carrying.

My truth is not a burden—it is my inheritance.

Outside, twilight approaches with the inevitability of destiny. Love isn’t the liability they taught me it was—it’s the revolution they never saw coming.

I will not shrink to fit their expectations.

The Trial of Truth will demand honesty, and I’ll give them more than they bargained for.