The air at Lake Como was crisp, cleaner than anything I'd tasted in years, but it still carried that faint salt-and-green scent of water and pines. It should have been enough to calm the storm in my chest, to erase the weight of empire and blood that never seemed to leave my shoulders.
But some storms don't go away.
I stood on the balcony of our villa, watching Mira with a wineglass in her hand, the late sun turning her hair into a sheet of fire. She was laughing at something a vendor had said down by the dock earlier, still replaying the memory for herself, and the sight hit me harder than any bullet could. That laugh...it anchored me. It reminded me that there was something in this world untouched by deceit and death, something pure I'd fought tooth and claw to keep.
And she was mine. She would always be.
