The sky was just beginning to soften into dawn. That blue-gray hour where dreams still clung to the air and the world hadn't quite woken yet. Veyrhold slept—its towers shadowed, its court hushed.
Inside Kaelira's chamber, the fire had burned low. She lay beneath velvet sheets, one leg bare to the cool morning breeze that slipped in through the broken balcony doors. The air smelled faintly of roses and ash.
She didn't know what woke her. Only that she was suddenly aware—of her heartbeat, her breath, and the warmth behind her. Dorian. His arm was slung across her waist, his hand open against her stomach like a promise he hadn't made aloud. She didn't move. Not yet.
Only listened.
To the silence.
To his breath.
To the odd, quiet way the world allowed her to exist without expectation for the first time in… lifetimes.
---
After a moment, she whispered, "You're awake."
Dorian shifted, burying his face against the curve of her shoulder.
"Was trying to pretend I wasn't," he murmured. "Didn't want to scare the moment away."
She smiled. Soft. Barely there.
"You breathe too loud."
"I'll work on that," he said, and she could hear the grin in his voice.
---
They lay still.
No war outside the door.
No Shade in her ear.
No titles between them.
Just Kaelira. And Dorian.
And time.
"Do you regret it?" she asked suddenly.
He propped himself up slightly. "Regret what?"
"Last night. This… us."
Dorian stared at her for a long moment.
Then: "Only that we lost so many nights before it."
That answer sank somewhere deep into her bones.
"I don't know how to be this," she confessed. "Not anymore. Not with everything I carry."
"You don't have to know," he said. "You just have to want it."
She turned in his arms, lying on her side now, facing him. Their legs tangled naturally, like they had in another life. Her fingers brushed his chest, then stilled over his heart.
"I don't know if I can be hers," she whispered. "Not the queen they expect. Not the ruler this kingdom wants."
Dorian leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her brow.
"Then don't be her," he said. "Be the queen only you could ever become. Not born of their fear—but of your fire."
---
A breeze caught the curtains. The light outside deepened to amber. Kaelira reached up and touched his cheek, fingers soft.
"You still feel like home," she said, barely audible.
His lips brushed hers in reply.
"And you still feel like the start of everything I should've fought for."
---
She closed her eyes again, letting herself breathe him in. And for one more fleeting hour, the world outside waited. Because this moment—their moment—was sacred.
No fire.
No throne.
Just two souls trying to fit the broken pieces of their forever back together.