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C allista startled. She shifted under her blankets and sniffed.

No overwhelming sadness flowed through the bond, but I could not ignore her silent cries. But…

Would she call if she wanted me? Not likely. The things she asked for were few and hard to predict. Even the shield around her bed—it had been painfully clear what she wanted, but she had refused to ask.

And I had promised to stay on my side of the room.

She sniffed again.

Burning ashes and flaming rivers. I could not just lie on the settee and listen to her cry.

I left the couch and walked to the invisible line where a wall had once separated my sitting room from my sleeping quarters. “Callista? Callista, may I come and sit by you?”

“Mm hmm.” Her answer was closer to a squeak than a word, but it was an affirmative squeak.

I crossed the threshold into her room and approached the side of the bed where she’d curled into one pillow and hugged another. After the day she’d had, she should have been exhausted enough to sleep all night, so something must have woken her. Or else she woke on her own and something kept her awake.

I perched on the edge of a large armchair and leaned toward the bed. “Will you tell me why you’re awake?”

She scooted closer to the edge of the bed and reached a hand toward me. The armchair was too far from the bed for me to reach her, so I dragged the whole thing closer and took her hand with one of mine.

She gripped mine tighter than I expected. “I had a dream,” she whispered, “and it reminded me how much I missed my mother.”

A lump grew in my throat. My own mother had been the kindest person I’d known. Perhaps that was something that had drawn me to Callista. She shared my mother’s kindness. And I had missed that kindness more than I’d admitted to anyone, including myself.

But this was not about me. Callista was the one who needed comforting in the loss of her mother. I did not deserve to be that person, but… she had allowed me to come closer.

And she had reached for me.

I ran my thumb along the back of her palm. “Would you tell me about your dream?”

She nodded and inched even closer to the edge of the bed. “I saw my mother.” And in between sniffs and swallows, she told me about a conversation with her mother .

The dream was short, but powerful. It made me think of my mother again. Perhaps she, too, was with me in every gentle word and kind decision that I made. She would have certainly wanted me to build new memories—to fill my life with happiness and… love.

Callista lay buried in blankets, though they’d fallen away from her face enough to reveal that she still wore my jacket. But inside all those blankets and pillows, she looked alone. So very alone.

And in that observation, my heart pitched itself toward hers. I wanted to make her feel safe and wanted, whole and complete—whatever the opposite of alone might be, I wanted to give it to her. In sharing her vulnerable dream, she gave me the strength to risk my own rejection.

“Callista, may I… hold you?”

Her face jerked up toward mine, and even in the dark I felt the strange mixture of her intense eyes with her exposed emotions. “Would you?”

I brought her hand to my mouth and kissed a knuckle. “I would consider it a privilege.” I stood up and tossed the pillow in front of her to the far side of the bed before scooping her—along with a pile of blankets—into my arms and settling back onto the large armchair.

She settled into the chair with me and rested her head against the side of my chest. I wrapped an arm around her, and her blankets, and pulled her close. She took a deep breath and relaxed her entire body as she breathed out.

This , my heart shouted at me. This is what your life is missing. And then the cursed organ practically hummed in satisfaction. On an impulse, I bent over and kissed the top of Callista’s head.

She wrapped an arm around my waist in a spontaneous hug. I tightened my arms in an embrace as well. Her unpredictable nature had captured my heart.

“Do you think it was real?” she whispered, muffling her words against my tunic.

It took me a moment to figure out what she meant. “Your dream?”

Her head shifted in a silent nod. “Do you think people who’ve passed can visit us in dreams?”

I ran a hand along her arm in what I hoped was a comforting touch. “I don’t know. I… I don’t feel qualified to tell you my thoughts.”

She swatted at my arm and huffed a soft snort. “Tell me anyway.”

I wiped a lock of hair away from her face. “Bossy.”

“Please?” She didn’t look at me. “I need to hear someone’s thoughts besides my own.”

I swallowed. “I… I think you should choose to believe it was real.”

She tipped her head to look at me. “Why?”

“Well…” Hopefully this did not come out wrong. “Whether she really came to you or your mind created the dream—does it change the truth or the meaning of what she said? I… Just listening to you tell it made me want to pursue the good things in my life more. So why not believe it if it will make your life better? Wouldn’t that make it real?”

She dropped her gaze and snuggled against my side. “I think I’d just like to know that she’s still out there in some unseen world, aware of me, and that I’ll see her again.”

I turned so I could wrap both arms around her while I swallowed fresh emotions of my own. “But we can’t know that, not really. Not with any proof. And…”

My own opinions on the topic were forming as I thought about her wish. “I think we have two choices. We can believe the people we love still exist somewhere, or we can believe they do not. If we go with the first, then we spend the rest of our lives happier in the hope that we’ll see them again. We miss them in both cases, but if we go with the second, we don’t have anything to look forward to.”

I tightened my hug around her, hoping my thoughts did not offend her. “If we’re wrong about the first, the only harm done is the years of hope we enjoyed, but we won’t even be around to realize the error. If we’re wrong about the second, we’ll regret the years we could have enjoyed with more hope. And I think I’d rather make the mistake of believing the first and finding it wrong than believing the second and finding it wrong.”

She chuckled. “That’s a very logical approach to it all.”

I kissed the top of her head again. “I apologize for my lack of spontaneous emotional reactions. I… I’ve been trying to control my more explosive emotions better, but it’s made me more thoughtful about… everything.”

She reached out of her cocoon of blankets, pulled one of my hands to her face, and kissed the base of my thumb. A fire of energy ran like sparks of lightning from where her lips touched my skin all the way to my heart, and the cursed organ tried jumping straight out of my chest to reach her.

“Firehawk,” I whispered, “you’ll burn my heart down if you do things like that.”

She gripped my hand and brought it close to her heart. “Don’t you dare apologize for being thoughtful,” she whispered back. “And while we’re on the topic, don’t apologize for a lack of emotional reactions either. You have the most beautiful emotions, and I love every moment you share them with me.”

I love you. She might have had other words in there too, but I only heard those three. My heart latched onto them as if she had given it permission to love her too.

But my head knew better. It knew how tired she was—how exhausted from the fire and an emotional dream—and I refused to take advantage of a careless slip of her tongue. She was not crying any longer, but she’d returned to her regular fiery self, so I turned and lifted her and her bundle of blankets back to the bed.

Her closed eyes flew open. “Are you leaving?”

No, never! my heart urged my mouth to answer, but my mouth had too much practice shutting down my emotions. Instead of saying anything right away, I cleared a few errant hairs away from her face and brushed my thumb on her cheek. “I think you need to sleep.”

She covered my hand with hers and pressed it against the side of her head. “I don’t think I’ll fall asleep any time soon.”

“What if…” My mind raced. Surely I could find an answer that would be honorable and responsible while offering her comfort and easing the ache that my heart insisted on presenting. And then I knew. “What if I played for you?”

Her eyebrows lifted just enough that I sensed her question. I bent down and kissed her forehead, then went to the wardrobe shelf and pulled out a case that hadn't been opened for years. I left the case in the wardrobe and took a lute to the armchair.

She sat up in bed when I started to tune it. “You play?”

I tightened the next string. Years of sitting on a shelf had not done it any favors, but it was a well-made instrument. It would play beautifully in a few moments. “I have the education of a prince of Hemlit. Of course it included music. ”

She straightened and leaned toward me, waving a hand. “And all these weeks—months—that I've been trying to learn to play from a book?”

I moved on to another set of strings. “I wanted to help more than you could imagine. But it didn't seem appropriate.”

“Appropriate? Exactly what, Aedan, about anything in our relationship is appropriate?”

That question hit me like an anvil just as I finished tuning. I looked up to find her fiery gaze fixed on me like I’d said something wrong. What about our relationship was appropriate? Everything!

“Callista, I have burned my own desires to ashes to make sure I didn’t do anything inappropriate.” I refused to take advantage of the fact that she was stuck here, regardless of the feelings I had for her.

Her voice dropped to a husky, but intense, whisper. “What desires, Aedan?”

What desires ? How could she not know? My heart beat like a wild beast trying to escape a cage. Tell her! it screamed. Tell her how you feel!

“I…” I was not so brave. She was the one who could say anything that crossed her mind. I was stuck debating if my words would lead to the death of my kingdom. My thumb slipped, striking the chanterelle. The string pierced the air with a note and gave me an idea.

“Lay down,” I said. “There’s an old ballad that contains my desires. Let me sing it for you.”

“You’re telling me what to do again.” She said the words, but there was no heat in her voice, and she laid down at the same time. “I think I’ve figured something out.”

I strummed the lute, testing my tuning. “Oh?”

“Mm hmm,” she muttered. “You get bossy when you’re nervous or afraid.”

I strummed again, trying to pretend her words didn’t tear into my heart. Were they true? “Perhaps. If so, I apologize. Apparently I am not as good at tempering my emotions as I thought.”

She chuckled. “It’s okay to be scared, Aedan.”

I tested out the chords for the song I wanted to sing to her. “Perhaps.”

She pulled a blanket around herself, and I began the song.

‘Tis simple now to walk the road

That’s paved with rocks and stone,

But yesteryear was close, you know,

When I walked here all alone.

There was no paving, no road signs,

No light to show the way.

I fell in darkness, cold and bleak,

Not wanting one more day.

I played the interlude twice, suddenly anxious about the confessions the next lines brought. But I told her I would share, and so I took a deep breath and plowed on.

But shock of all, your fire found me,

You brightened up the sky.

You lit the road and burned my heart,

You gave me wings to fly.

Oh, I will bless your fire–

And carry your light,

Build on the brightnes s

And suffer every night.

There is no darkness,

No terror too sharp—

Nothing that I won’t face

For the chance at your heart.

I will feed your fire

And praise the light anew,

Spare you every pain,

‘Til I prove my heart is true—

I glanced at her, hoping my truth had not traumatized her. She had sat back up and was staring at me with such a hopeful, happy expression that my heart took courage and excitedly offered her the next verse.

And when you can trust the words that

I speak from my mind,

I will offer my heart in the

Purest ties that bind.

Oh, I will bless your fire–

And carry your light,

Build on the brightness

And suffer every night.

There is no darkness,

No terror too sharp—

Nothing that I won’t face

For the chance at your heart.

I will feed your fire

And praise the light anew,

Spare you every pain,

‘Til I prove my heart is true—

We will burn the world

And light the skies we view ,

Torch every trial,

With the pow’r of me and you—

My flames and my firehawk… the thought of them taking on the world together filled my voice with passion.

We will burn the world

And light the skies we view,

Torch every trial,

With the flames of love so true.

There is no path too dark and no

Unknown left to fear

Because the certainty of you

Is always here.

We will burn the world

And light the skies we view,

Torch every trial,

With the flames of love so true.

I played the final refrain again without singing any words, suddenly wondering if I’d read her wrong and said too much. But it was what I felt. If it came back to curse me, then… so be it.

I risked looking at her again. A faint sheen glistened over her eyes, as if she might start crying again, but… no sad feelings came through the bond at all. Instead, a new impression washed over me. Something like a warm breeze carrying a hopeful happiness.

“That song,” she asked, “contains your desires?”

I nodded. “I… you… I didn’t know how dark my life was until you lit it up. I would do anything—everything—for you, but… you deserve so much more than me. I… I don’t even love myself. I don’t want to burden you with me and my darkness.”

She raised her brows. “And what about the burden that I am to you?”

I shook my head. “You are no burden.”