The chasm between their strengths, identities, circumstances, and status had doomed the relationship between Shiayar and Silvia, making it impossible to return to what it was five hundred years ago.
But at this moment, savoring the true feelings transmitted by her spiritual incarnation as a white cat, she clearly felt that familiar sensation returning.
When Shiayar caressed her, Silvia felt everything return to that cold winter night, to the tumultuous Grant Sea.
Then, too, a pair of hands with distinct knuckles had pulled her from the bone-chilling seawater, granting her a new life.
That moment then was just like this moment now.
Everything seemed to return to the very beginning. She was no longer the Gray-Silver Witch who had ascended the Throne, but merely the uncherished only daughter of a ducal family head, trailing after the young man daily, calling out, "Brother Shiayar."
Simple, unadorned, yet deeply satisfying.
