Page 103 of Evermore (The Never Sky #3)

Paesha

I stood on the balcony of the royal chambers, watching stars emerge.

The kingdom spread below me. Stirling, a constellation of flickering lights, streets I’d once walked as a stranger now mine to protect.

Mine to rule. The weight of that responsibility pressed down on my shoulders, a crown heavier than the one I wore for formal occasions.

It was fine and I could handle this, but gods I wish it came without the threat of a god looming over us.

“You’re thinking too loudly again,” Thorne said, his voice a warm rumble as he appeared behind me.

I didn’t turn, but I felt him, the heat of his body as he stepped closer, the brush of his breath against my hair. “Someone has to do the thinking around here.”

His laugh was soft, barely more than an exhale. “Is that what we’re calling it now? Because from where I’m standing, it looks an awful lot like brooding.”

“I don’t brood.”

“Of course not.” His hands found my waist, gentle but insistent as he turned me to face him. “That’s my specialty.”

I allowed myself the luxury of looking at him, really looking, at the sharp planes of his face, the slight stubble darkening his jaw, the curve of his mouth that always seemed on the verge of a smile when he looked at me. Immortal, yet somehow so beautifully, perfectly human in moments like these.

“I have a reputation to maintain, you know? I can’t have people saying the Queen of Stirling is stealing the Lord of the Salt’s signature move.”

He captured my hand, bringing it to his lips. “I would gladly cede brooding rights to you, if it meant you’d share this burden. Talk to me. Or I’ll get the Quoralis out and you can write it down.”

I managed a small laugh. “I don’t need your little magic book. It’s just been too quiet. Ezra hasn’t made a move. It’s been a month since the Fates, and nothing. Not even a whisper.”

“And that bothers you.”

“Doesn’t it bother you? He’s planning something. I can feel it.”

Thorne nodded, not dismissing my concerns, not telling me I was being paranoid. Simply listening, understanding. “He is. But so are we.”

“Are we, though? Because it feels like we’re… waiting.”

His thumb brushed across my cheek, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear before he pulled me close. “A month is a breath to someone as old as we are. Strategic patience isn’t the same as waiting.”

“Sounds suspiciously like something Minerva would say.”

“She’s rubbing off on me. Old gods, new tricks.”

“I can’t lose anyone else.”

“You won’t.”

“You can’t promise that.”

He pulled back just enough to meet my eyes. “I’ll do whatever?—”

“Thorne—”

“It’s not a bargain. I’m not binding myself to sacrifice anything. I’m simply promising my love. I’ve existed for eons, Paesha. I’ve seen empires rise and fall. I’ve watched stars burn out and new ones ignite. But nothing— nothing— has ever been as constant, as certain, as my love for you.”

Without warning, he pulled me flush against him, his mouth claiming mine with an intensity that made my knees weak. I melted into him, my fingers gripping his hair as he backed me against the balcony railing.

The kiss deepened, grew desperate, a silent conversation about fear and love and all the tangled emotions between.

His hands skimmed down my sides, settling at my waist, lifting me until I was seated on the railing, his arms a solid wall between me and a terrible fall.

Not that I was afraid, not with him holding me like this, like I was the only thing that mattered.

When we finally broke apart, both breathless, I kept my eyes closed for a moment, savoring the lingering taste of him on my lips.

“Marry me,” he whispered against my mouth. “Again. For real this time.”

My eyes flew open. “What?”

He didn’t back down, didn’t laugh it off as a joke. Instead, he held my gaze with unwavering certainty. “Marry me. Not for politics, not for power. For us.”

“The queen can’t —”

“I’m not asking the queen, who likely could marry Lord Thorne Noctus. I’m asking Paesha, the woman who fought for her life in the Maw. The dancer who stole my heart. The mother. The friend. The warrior. The only soul who has ever matched mine across countless lifetimes.”

I stared at him. It could be this easy. It could.

It felt impossible with the weight of everything else, but it wasn’t.

Not this. Not him. I shoved myself off the balcony, pushing into his arms. “I’ll marry you, Reverius Hawthorne Noctus.

Mostly because I know you’ll pout if I say no, and no one needs that. ”

“You’re not wrong.” He kissed me again, slower this time, a seal on a vow. But before I could promise him anything, I needed an answer to a burning question that had haunted me for far too long.

“Can I ask you something?” My fingers traced the line of his collarbone, a nervous gesture disguised as intimacy.

“Anything.”

“If Ezra is your twin, your equal… Could he kill you? Gods can die at the hands of their descendants, their blood. But what about you two?”

Thorne went still, his expression carefully neutral, but I felt the subtle tension in his body. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I need to know what we’re facing. What he’s capable of. What the threat truly is.”

He sighed, stepping back enough to meet my eyes properly. “Yes and no. My brother and I are an equal match, power for power. When mine wanes, his does too. The imbalance affects us both equally.”

“Has truly binding the fates helped?”

“It’s not getting worse. But it’s not getting better either. The damage was done long before we bound them.”

A chill ran through me as understanding dawned. “So he could kill you.”

“He could,” Thorne said, his voice steady. “But he’d be killing himself as well. Our existence is connected in ways even we don’t fully comprehend.”

“What if that’s his plan?” The fear that had been gnawing at me for weeks finally took shape. “What if he’s desperate enough to end it all? To take you both out?”

Thorne cupped my face between his hands, his thumbs brushing my cheekbones. “It would never be. Ezra loves existence too much, loves himself too much. His anger toward me is deep, yes, but his survival instinct runs deeper.”

“You can’t know that for certain.”

“I can. I’ve known him since the beginning of everything, Paesha. Even at his most irrational, his most vengeful, self-preservation has always been at his core.”

I wanted to believe him. Needed to. But the memory of Archer’s blood on my hands, the sudden, unexpected brutality of his death, made certainty feel like a luxury I couldn’t afford.

His eyes hardened. “I’m not wrong.”

“Together, then,” I whispered, sealing the promise with another kiss.

The night deepened around us, the kingdom slept below, and for a few precious hours, we allowed ourselves to forget about vengeful gods and looming threats. To simply be Paesha and Thorne, two souls that had finally found their way back to each other after too many lifetimes apart.

Tomorrow would bring its own challenges. Tonight, we had this. And it was enough.

The garden had been restored since Archer’s death, new life coaxed from soil that had once turned to dust with grief. Everything had been restored.

Everything except him.

I sat on the stone bench, my eyes fixed on the statue before me.

Bronze, gleaming in the sunlight, capturing Archer in a moment of laughter.

His head was thrown back, one hand resting casually in his pocket where his coins would have been.

Thea had done so well, working from memories, but she hadn’t quite captured the crinkle around his eyes when he smiled, hadn’t perfectly shown the way his shoulders relaxed when he felt truly at ease.

Still, it was something. A reminder of what we’d lost. What we were still fighting for.

The gods who had accompanied us to the Fates’ realm had done exactly as we’d predicted, spread word of my power, my victory, my unbridled rage.

Their purpose was never to help, not truly.

We’d needed witnesses. Needed them to see what I was capable of, to carry tales back to Ezra, to make him think twice about moving against us openly.

Information was its own kind of weapon. Fear, its own deterrent.

Ezra had gone silent immediately after word spread.

No one had seen him. I knew where he was usually.

Bouncing between this realm and Etherium.

Sometimes he’d go to another, where I hadn’t been.

Where I couldn’t track him with my power.

It took us a while to realize that was where he was hiding when I couldn’t find him.

But still we waited. Day after endless day, growing more restless with each sunrise, more tense with each sunset.

Which was likely his plan.

“I remember when he tried to juggle.” Thea’s voice broke through my thoughts as she approached, a basket of flowers tucked under one arm. “He dropped every single ball, and then pretended it was intentional.”

I smiled despite myself. “He claimed it was a new style. ‘Controlled chaos,’ he called it.”

“Always quick with an excuse.” She sat beside me, setting her basket down.

“Tuck and I are heading to the Underground. There’s a celebration tonight, something to mark the first full harvest since everything changed.

” She hesitated, glancing at me. “You should come. It would do you good to get out of the castle.”

I shook my head. “I can’t.”

“You can’t, or you won’t?”

“Both.” I ran my fingers over the smooth stone of the bench. “If I sit here, he’ll come for me and not everyone else.”

“He’s not coming for you. He’s a coward.

And you can’t die so there would be no point.

Plus, this is why we have guards. And Thorne.

And Minerva. And all the other immortal beings who seem determined to hover around you these days.

” She reached for my hand. “You’re allowed to live, Paesha. That’s what Archer would want.”

“I’m not sure any of us know what Archer would want anymore.”