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The enormity of what she has sacrificed nearly crushes me. More than her freedom or her safety, she has risked her very future, the human life she built, and the identity she crafted with such care.

“You must understand what this means.” I step up behind her, my hands settling on her shoulders, and the fever of her transformation burns my palms. “You can never go home.”

“I haven’t had one of those in a long time.” Her laugh carries no humor as she turns within my hold. “Don’t add my homelessness to your list of sins, Silver King. It predates our acquaintance by decades.”

“Nevertheless.” The guilt remains, an emotion I am unaccustomed to. “I owe you a debt I can never repay.”

“Then don’t try.” Her features set with determination. “Help me save your brother instead. We don’t have much time. The court remakes him, hour by hour. Soon there will be nothing left but the dreaming.”

The fear I have held at bay crashes through my defenses. My brother, trapped in a dying court that would consume him to survive. The brother I raised, protected, and love beyond reason or logic.

“I am sorry,” I whisper again, but this time the apology is not for her. It is for Elionn, for failing to find him sooner.

Amalia shifts closer, and my hands slide to her back, her slender frame warm and deceptively fragile beneath my touch.

“He fought it as long as he could.” Her palms settle against my chest, neither offering comfort nor pushing me away. “He was still holding onto himself when I found him.”

“And when we see him again, will he still be himself?”

The question hangs between us, unanswerable.

For a moment, we simply stand there, caught between everything she cannot promise and everything I cannot bear to lose.

Then she lifts her face to mine.

I should release her.

Instead, I cradle her jaw, my thumb finding the same cheekbone I traced only moments ago. Her strange opal eyes hold mine, their shifting colors impossible to read, but she does not retreat.

Neither do I.

I’ve tried not to want her fire, her fury, her impossible resilience.

Tried and failed.

The first brush of our mouths sings through my blood, a current of connection stronger than any magic I have known in centuries of rule.

Amalia meets me without hesitation.

Her fingers curl into the fabric over my chest as I draw her closer, and the kiss deepens. There is nothing tentative in her response, nothing fragile about the woman in my arms. She kisses with the same ferocity she brings to battle, demanding as much as she gives, and whatever remains of my restraint burns away beneath it.

For centuries, I have known every measure of my own power. I know the precise reach of my magic, the weight of the crown upon my brow, the strength required to bend a sithe to my will.

I have no measure for this.

The taste of salt on her lips. The heat of her body against mine. The impossible thrum of ancient magics finding an answer deep within me. Each sensation strips another layer from the king until I can no longer remember why I ever believed wanting her was a thing I could master.

When we finally part, I do not release her.

For several breaths, neither of us speaks. Her face remains lifted to mine, color rising beneath the crystalline traces in her skin. I could close the scant distance between us and kiss her again.

I want to.

The realization is devastating in its simplicity.

I have worn my crown for so long, I have forgotten how to be a man instead of a monarch.

Amalia breaks the silence first. “What was that for?”