We honored Deveil’s Night, then welcomed the Descent of the Veil with warmth and quiet reflection. Afterward, we returned to the Council Chambers, where training resumed, stretching on through another week and a half of focused effort.

After training, I usually left first, quiet, quick, unnoticed, or as unnoticed as I could be. For the first week, Veyn still tried to talk to me, but when I told him I needed time, he stopped. Since that day my heart has ached worse than ever, and I wondered if someone could die of a broken heart.

Then tonight we learned that in four days, we would be going to The Seal to save Halven. Nonis 27th. I didn’t want to wait any longer, so after our training, I lingered. The Council Chambers emptied slowly, some of my friends sending curious looks my way, but soon it was just Veyn and myself.

Veyn stood near the dais, gathering the last of his papers, fingertips stained faintly with chalk. He hadn’t noticed me yet, or if he had, he pretended not to. Perhaps trying too hard to honor my wishes.

My pulse flickered at my wrist like a warning. I didn’t know what I meant to say. I only knew I couldn’t keep walking away.

So I crossed the chamber.

“You always stay after,” I said. I had watched him leave the Council Chambers later and later every day. “You spend hours here after we leave.”

Would he infer that I had been watching him?

He didn’t look up. Didn’t give any indication of his thoughts. “I didn’t realize you still cared to notice.”

“Don’t”

His head bowed and he closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and spoke without opening his eyes. “I meant that you’re always one of the first to leave, so quick to get out the door, that I thought you no longer cared I was here.”

My voice was barely above a whisper when I said, “I care. Too much. I always leave quickly to avoid those feelings, though, because it hurts to care this much.”

He opened his eyes, but his focus went back to gathering his papers, ignoring my confession.

I didn’t know whether to allow myself to feel hurt by this or be angry at his nonchalance. I tried to keep either emotion out of my voice when I asked, “Why do you stay?”

“I stay because I already lost any care.”

No! That alarmed me more than I let show although my throat tightened with tears.

I spoke softly, like treading through marshes where predators could easily attack after being startled. “That can’t be true.”

Veyn’s eyes met mine. Brown, shadowed, tired. But still warm.

He couldn’t lie to me. I know he still cared. He just didn’t want to.

I stood straighter. “I don’t want to fight anymore. Not about why you left. Not about the things you won’t tell me.”

His jaw flexed.

I licked my lips, allowing a fraction of unease through. “I miss us, Veyn. I’ll take whatever version of you your willing to offer”

He said nothing.

My fingers trembled. “Do you see a future between us? Can things that have been ripped apart still bind again?”

The silence stretched.

Then Veyn exhaled his gaze never leaving mine. “Some things don’t bind again once they’ve been damaged too much, no matter the price paid.”

My breath caught. He wasn’t talking about magic, like I hadn’t been. This was about us.

I shook my head. “I don’t believe that.”

He stepped closer. Not enough to close the distance, but a dark green vine slithered out from his sleeve and wrapped around my wrist as if to bind us physically together.

He didn’t notice. Or if he did, he said nothing.

I didn’t remove it. Perhaps there was hope still.

“Tell me you’ll trust me again,” he said.

“What?”

“I left you for two years. And when I returned, I didn’t seek you out. Instead, I imprisoned one of our friends. Can you honestly tell me that you trust me?”

I swallowed hard. “I know your heart, Veyn. I know you left to protect me. I know that everything you do is with the goodness of your soul. A soul I’ll never stop loving.”

His expression shattered. He looked down.

“I’ve wronged you, Shara. And I can’t fix that. Please leave.”

That struck deeper than anything else he could have said. My heart fell in my chest, falling into a void of nothingness.

“You don’t mean that.”

He looked at me. And I saw all of it. The love. The ache. The refusal.

“I do.”

I backed up a step. The green vine yanked me toward him, but I resisted. His lips remained pursed with resoluteness.

I turned, because if I didn’t, I would stay and beg. And I would never beg.

With the first hard step away from him, the vine released me.

I just kept walking, letting it fall loose behind me.

But I felt it. The echo of something that once bound us still reaching for what we used to be.