It was too quiet.
The kind of quiet that didn't feel like peace — it felt like the pause before a scream.
Lyra stood barefoot on the cold marble, her palms braced on the edge of the washbasin. Water dripped from her wrists, slipping down her fingers in slow rivulets, pink with blood she couldn't remember drawing.
Not hers. Not yet.
She stared into the mirror, at the girl who'd died once already. Her face was too still. Not pale, not bruised. Just... numb. Like something had been carved out of her.
And filled with ash.
The door behind her didn't creak when it opened. Thorne moved like a stormcloud — heavy, silent, inevitable.
He said nothing at first. She didn't turn.
"You shouldn't be alone."
Lyra's laugh was a breath, broken. "I've been alone my whole life, Your Highness. This is nothing new."
A pause. Then footsteps.
He stopped just behind her. She could feel the heat of him, feel the space he refused to fill.
"The guards said Cassian brought you back."
Lyra's jaw tensed. "If you're here to ask what happened, don't. I already scrubbed off the blood."
"I'm not asking."
Her reflection was brittle, a fractured pane ready to shatter. "Then what do you want?"
His voice was low. Controlled. Dangerous. "To know who I need to kill."
She closed her eyes.
The memory sliced through her — Cassian's voice in the dark. The ghost of poison on her tongue. The way he looked at her like a man praying to the god he condemned.
"I don't need a sword," she said. "Not tonight."
Thorne's gloved hand lifted, hesitant. Then it curled around her wrist — gentle, but firm. Anchoring.
"You're shaking."
"I'm not."
"You are."
She opened her eyes. Looked at the hand gripping her. Then up — into eyes that weren't cold at all.
Not tonight.
Something uncoiled in her chest. Something ugly and aching.
"Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like I'm worth something."
His voice was barely a whisper. "You are."
She laughed again, bitter and jagged. "To you, maybe. Because I'm useful."
"To me," he said, "because I see you."
And gods help her, she believed him.
She turned. Slowly. And when she spoke, her voice cracked down the middle. "I was fifteen when my sister first lied to ruin me. Seventeen when Caelum kissed her behind my back. Twenty when my father told me I was lucky to marry anyone at all."
Thorne didn't speak.
"I used to think if I was quiet enough, good enough, they'd love me eventually. That I'd matter." Her nails dug into her palms. "But I could've set myself on fire and they still would've asked why it wasn't warm enough."
Thorne stepped forward. Closed the last inch between them.
"You don't have to prove anything anymore."
She stared at him, hating him a little for being kind. For meaning it.
"I don't do love," she said.
"I know."
"I don't do trust."
"You shouldn't."
Her breath shook. "Then why are you here?"
He reached up, brushing a strand of wet hair from her face. His glove was damp now — from her, or from the ghosts he carried.
"Because I know what it is to burn and have no one come."
Her throat tightened. "You think we're the same?"
"No."
"Then what?"
His eyes darkened, like thunder behind glass. "I think you're worse."
She blinked.
"You died and came back," he said. "But you didn't come back hollow. You came back sharp. You scare them, Lyra. And that's good. Scars mean you survived. But teeth?" He stepped in, pressing his palm to her jaw, making her look at him. "Teeth mean you learned to bite."
Her breath caught. Gods, he was close. Too close.
"I'm not a weapon," she said.
"You don't have to be."
"But if I want to be?"
"Then aim me," he said simply. "Use me. I'm yours."
The heat between them wasn't soft. It was jagged, primal — the kind of pull that felt like a blade to the throat, daring her to lean in.
But she didn't.
Not yet.
Instead, she turned away, swallowing the grief, the guilt, the hunger.
He didn't leave.
"I need sleep," she said, voice like cracked porcelain.
Thorne nodded once. "I'll stay."
She glanced back. "You don't have to."
"I know."
And he did. He stayed.
Not in her bed, but in a chair by the fire. Watching the door. Guarding the dark.
Lyra lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, listening to his breath.
And somewhere in that space between exhaustion and memory — she whispered a truth so soft even the walls couldn't catch it.
"Thank you."
She didn't know if he heard.
But in the quiet, his armor shifted. And she imagined — or maybe she didn't — that he whispered back:
"You're not ash, Lyra. You're the fire that made it."