It was one of the most secluded spaces in the academy’s archives, tucked beyond the herbology scrolls and root lore codices. The light filtering down from the amber-glass skylight gave the floor a golden sheen, softening every edge.
That was when I saw him.
Veyn.
My heartbeat sped up.
He stood just beyond the lattice archway, half in shadow, fingers curled loosely around a rolled scroll he wasn’t reading. His hair was longer than it used to be, braided now, with curling vines of dark green twining through the strands. His robes had the cut of a professor, but the way his shoulders tensed, the slight clench of his jaw—that was still the boy I loved.
Our eyes met. Brown, like mine, but deep as old bark and starting to glow faintly gold.
Breathe stilled in my chest. So many questions clogged my throat. The moment hung there, stretched tight like a sap-thread about to snap.
Then he turned away.
“Veyn.” My voice cracked more than I expected it to.
He paused—only a second—then kept walking.
My world began to crumble. I couldn’t take him leaving me again, and he hadn’t even said a word to me yet. But I wasn’t going to let him keep putting this distance between us. Besides, I needed answers.
My boots scraped quietly across the stone as I hurried after him. I caught up just before he turned the corner, reaching out without thinking and pressing my hand flat against his chest to stop him.
His breath hitched.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
He looked down at my hand—at the delicate green shoots unfurling over my wrist, curling outward from my skin like they were reaching for him.
His own vines, a richer green and thornier, began to slip from beneath his cuffs, winding softly around my fingers.
His hand came up slowly, settling over mine.
He swept his thumb across my knuckles, slow and reverent, his magic pulsing warm against my skin. Gold flared in his eyes.
Still, he said nothing.
“Veyn,” I said again, quieter now. “Please.”
The vines tangled further, knotting like something old trying to remember how to grow again.
When he finally spoke, it was low, the gravity of his emotions making the words thick. “I’ve never stopped loving you.”
He swallowed hard. I couldn’t figure out how to feel about his confession. Everything was too confusing.
“Why did you leave me?”
The most important question.
He shook his head. “I didn’t have a choice.”
Nothing in his glowing eyes or in the slow tangle of his vines, not even a glimmer in his expression told me that he planned to elaborate.
I willed the tears away, but a tremble caught my bottom lip with my whisper, “You broke my heart.”
“Veyshara.” He spoke my True Name with the accent of our language, rolling the r. “If I could have saved you the pain, I would have.”
Still, he added nothing more, and the questions could not be held back, spilling from my lips like petals falling all at once.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Why couldn’t you have stopped for just a moment to take me with you?”
“And why are you back now?”
“Did you come back because Halven is missing?”
“Why did you give me this leaf?"
“Why won’t you even look at me now?”
He had angled away from me while still holding my hand, his whole body tense as if he meant to literally run away.
“Did you leave because of me? Did you mean to end our relationship?”
He didn’t answer. Not once. But his gaze drifted from my hand now to my face, his brow tight, mouth a line. Not closed-off—but restrained. Like if he spoke, the truth would crack open something neither of us could control.
So he didn’t.
He just stood there, fingers tightening around mine like it might break us both.
I tried again, voice cracking under the weight of everything unsaid. “Why did you come back now?”
Still nothing.
In a bold, frustrated moment, I shoved the spiral leaf at him and demanded, “Then why give this to me?”
He closed his eyes.
“Why won’t you tell me anything?”
“What are you so afraid of?”
My voice wasn’t angry now. But it trembled—too much hope, too much ache, too much of everything that had unraveled between us.
Still he said nothing.
My throat tightened. “Just say something.”
His eyes opened—sharp and bright, gold flaring just beneath brown.
And then he kissed me.
It was sudden. Not gentle. Not tentative. His lips pressed to mine like a fire flaring to life—urgent, unrelenting, silencing.
My hands came up to his chest, pressing lightly in protest, but I didn’t pull away.
It was too familiar. And yet… not. His mouth was just different enough—tilted with more weight, a slower burn, edged in memory and something new. Something that made me wonder, briefly, who else had shaped that difference in the two years he’d been gone.
I stiffened, breath caught between us.
But then his fingers threaded into my hair, firm and slow, vines slipping across his wrists and mine. His other hand curled against my waist, drawing me closer. His mouth moved against mine with a fever that burned down every question, every carefully stacked wall.
The ache in me cracked wide open.
I gave in.
My body leaned into his. My hands slid up his chest. My magic curled toward his like roots seeking familiar soil.
And for a moment, I forgot why I’d chased him.
For a moment, it didn’t matter.
Then, slowly, he began to pull away. Not a recoil—just a slow unraveling, like leaves falling at the end of fall. His hands slipped back. But his forehead rested gently against mine, breath warm against my skin.
“I miss you,” he whispered.
The rawness in his voice hollowed something in my chest.
But then he added, softer still: “I can’t answer you. Please… stop asking.”
The ache twisted.
I stepped back.
Just one step—but it was everything.
The air cooled between us. My vines retreated, curling tight against my skin. My eyes burned with something I refused to let fall.
“That’s not fair,” I said, voice low. “None of this is fair.”
He didn’t argue. He just stood there. Watching me. Not reaching out again.
So I turned and left.
The leaf stayed in my hand, but the answers—whatever they were—stayed behind with him.
A Private Encounter
