The quiet between them felt heavy, like they were holding onto secrets that couldn't be true. Evelyn didn't move, her yellow eyes wide open, her lips shaking but no words coming out. The boy was kneeling in front of her, his dark hair covering his eyes, which looked so familiar it hurt her heart like old wounds were opening up again.
He had said things that only a special person could know, private things she had shared with Damien when they were in love. The way he had kissed her head on the night she became queen. The promise she had whispered to him, never said to anyone else.
But that happened twenty years ago. Twenty years of being in charge, hiding her sadness with work, and ignoring the part of herself that had only loved him. Could the gods be so mean as to bring him back in a young boy's body?
"Stand up," she told him, but her voice was shaky.
