Vighon couldn’t help his look of surprise. “Expect? You’re expecting us all to die?”
“Why not?” Inara countered. “The best of us already have.”
“You have ever been a beacon of hope, Inara, for all of us. Don’t lose that now,” he beseeched.
“I have carried hope for others for so long,” she replied wearily. “Where do I get it from?”
Vighon extended his hand and squeezed Inara’s fingers. The lines between them had blurred of late, tempting him to offer a part of himself as hope, but he feared she would reject him again. To hear those words would open a scar that had never truly healed.
“I only wish this war hadn’t made me so numb,” Inara continued. “It’s getting harder to feel anything anymore. Especially when your own brother can take everything you love away from you.”
Indeed, Vighon could hear the difference in her voice now. Before hearing of her grandmother’s death, Inara had sounded her hopeful self. Now, however, she had lost her softer edges in the wake of yet more grief.
“It was here that you told me of your love,” he said. “For the realm and the people. For Alijah.”
Inara cast her eyes down at the lake. “There is nothing left of my brother to love. The Crow hollowed him out.”
Vighon was inclined to agree. There was nothing in his old friend he recognised anymore - just an insatiable hunger to conquer the world.
“Do not let it hollow you out,” he warned. “Your love for the people is displayed in your bravery every day.”
“What about my love for you?” she posed quietly, taking the king by surprise. “What display of that is there?”
Vighon swallowed hard, hoping the butterflies in his stomach would settle down. He still relived their recent conversation in The Black Wood, in which Inara had spoken of a kiss she might have given him. He had hoped, more than anything, that he was seeing something of his Inara in that moment, but he didn’t dare cling to something that could shatter his heart.
“I do love you,” Inara whispered, turning her glassy blue eyes on the king.
Vighon looked back at her, barely catching her words in the breeze. “I know,” he uttered. “You told me as much the last time we were here. You told me you couldn’t love in the way I wanted you to - in the way I love you.”
“I was wrong.” Inara maintained her intense gaze. “I never stopped loving you, even after I left for The Lifeless Isles. My bond with Athis quietened those feelings and kept me focused on my duty to the order. But they were still there, under the surface. Now, I struggle from day to day to fully grasp my own emotions. It’s like sailing in a storm. But every time I think of you, every time I hear your name or see your face, it’s everything else that quietens. That’s how I know I love you. That’s how I know I’ve always loved you.”
Vighon could feel his eyes filling with tears. For so many years, the king had made every effort not to dwell on his loneliness, but hearing those words from Inara brought it all up from the depths of his heart.
“I have tried, for so long, not to love you,” he confessed with an unsteady breath. “But it was like trying to rid the world of colour.” Turning his whole body towards her, he waited for Inara to do the same before gently touching her cheek. “I am desperately, hopelessly, in love with you.”
“Are we fools to give in to this now?” Inara asked. “We would only be giving Alijah so much more to take from us.”
“You fear our love would doom us?” Vighon reasoned.
Inara tilted her head as their cloaks flapped around them. “I fear what losing you would do to me.”
“I think it’s too late for that,” he countered, feeling Inara’s hand on the side of his neck. “Since you left for The Lifeless Isles, all those years ago, I have woken up every day feeling like I had already lost you. For whatever time I have left, before whatever doom might await us, I would see it through with you by my side.”
Inara cupped his face in both hands and brought their lips together in an embrace that both had waited a lifetime for. Vighon pulled her in as close as he could, his arms wrapped around her. It wasn’t like the last time they had kissed with a moment of reservation from Inara. Now it felt like they were sixteen again, kissing in the shade of the trees on her parents’ land.
When, finally, they parted again, the pair held each other in their arms as well as their gaze. Vighon would have given anything to stay in this moment, a moment he had dreamt of more times than he could recall.
“What do we do now?” he asked.
“Now we try not to die,” Inara replied, with some hope, at last, returning to her tone.
“I’ve got pretty good at that,” Vighon quipped, with a coy grin.
“Only because I’ve been watching your back,” Inara informed him.
Vighon mirrored her smile and kissed her again, only this time he had no intention of parting.
14
Not Forgotten
Having raided the kitchens for raw meat, Asher, Gideon, and Avandriell made for the ramparts of the keep. The old master guided them towards the northern walls, where the view offered a jagged vista of snow-capped mountains surrounding The King’s Lake. The water’s surface would begin to freeze over soon, signalling winter’s hold.
Asher tried to take it all in, but his concerns constantly returned to Avandriell, who was dragging a raw steak across the ramparts. She battled with it, rolling over herself while shaking the meat in her jaws. More than once he had to correct her wildness and prevent her from falling into the small courtyard below. Then he feared she would leap over the walls of the rampart and fall on the rocky shelf that loomed over the lake.
“I feel
