T he time came, eventually, that I had been dreading. The final Alliance ships were leaving for Threll, and Serel, of course, would need to be on

them.

We had spent a lot of time together over this last month. In the wake of the battle, we’d held each other in sheer euphoric delight that we had both managed to make it out alive. I’d treasured our time together in the days since—early morning teas before the work began, late night drinks of wine when the hard days were done.

I was a bit surprised when he stayed after the first wave of ships left, and then the second. I knew it was because of me, though I didn’t want to question it. These were hard days, and I liked having my friend with me through them.

I knew, even though we left it unspoken, that he was giving me as much time as possible to make my own decisions. And I knew he would support me in whatever they turned out to be.

But I still felt like a traitor when I told him that I was going to stay in Ara.

“Only for now,” I said. “Until we finish sorting all of this out. Sesri hasn’t even arrived, and the senate hasn’t finished being installed, and we haven’t yet gotten the school ready, and the guild—”

Serel laughed and jokingly rubbed his temples. “Gods, Tisaanah, you’re making my head hurt. I know, you are busy. I get the point.” Then his smile softened. “I’m not surprised. I knew you were going to stay.”

He meant this as a comfort, but instead it made guilt slide between my ribs.

“Nothing is more important to me than the Alliance,” I said. “You know that. Don’t you?”

“You created the Alliance. You have paid your debt to us, Tisaanah. There isn’t a soul in the senate that would disagree.” He smirked. “Though I suppose I’ll have to let them know that you won’t be accepting the Nyzrenese seat. They’ll be gutted.”

The truth was, even if Max and I had decided to return to Threll, I wouldn’t have accepted the Nyzrenese leadership seat. I understood, now, how Max had felt when he took the crown of Ara, even knowing it would be temporary. Their admiration for me was built on so many legends. But I couldn’t rule them as a figurehead—and I didn’t want to speak for only Nyzerene, a country that I barely remembered.

No, I didn’t want to work in service to a country. I wanted to work in service to the entire world.

The things that Max and I talked about in the few spare moments we had during the day, though—the school, the guild that I was building with Iya…

These were things that set my soul on fire. The potential seemed limitless.

Still, now I looked into Serel’s blue eyes and doubt clenched in my chest.

“You can stay here,” I blurted out. “With us. Everyone here loves you.

You could build a life here.”

He could have laughed at me, and I wouldn’t have blamed him. It was an absurd proposition. This was not his home. He was key to the day-to-day leadership of the Alliance, and he was breathtakingly good at it. It was selfish on every level for me to ask him to stay.

But he didn’t laugh. Instead he put his hand behind my neck and leaned his forehead against mine.

“Your heart is a part of my heart,” he said. “Even with an ocean between us.”

My eyes stung so much that I didn’t even trust myself to say anything more after that. I barely spoke as I helped him load his meager belongings onto the ship. I stood on the docks as the boat pulled away, his shock of golden hair a beacon beneath the midday sun.

It had all been because of him. Every moment in this life, every freedom we earned, every happiness that I found. It was all because of him and that

single sacrifice that he made for me.

At the last moment, I ran suddenly to the end of the dock—so fast I nearly sent myself toppling over the edge.

“I love you!” I shouted.

I would wonder if he heard me, or if my words were lost in the wind and the lapping of the sea. I would wonder countless times if my friend— my brother—knew everything that he meant to me.

A heartbeat, and then two.

And then I saw that distant figure bring his hands cupped to his face.

And so faintly I could barely hear it, there was the returning echo:

I love you.

Home.

We were so busy for so long that the word couldn’t even cross our minds. But soon, Max and I were the only ones who remained at the Palace. And soon, with the senate established, with Sesri on her way back, with the clean-up complete and the Fey peace treaties signed, the word began to slip over our tongues again.

Home.

It smelled like him—like ashes and lilac. The cottage was now little more than a pile of rock and ash, barely recognizable as something that had once been a house. But I had learned long ago that it was not the stone that made something a home. Whatever made this one ours still remained, even if the building was gone.

The garden had flourished, even in Max’s absence. The flowers reclaimed every inch of the earth, covering the walkways and even winding over the burnt beams and fallen stone.

I assumed Max would be appalled, but I thought it was beautiful. “No,” Max said, when I told him so. “I think it’s beautiful, too.”

We walked the boundaries of the grounds, hand in hand. There was the stoop where I had sat outside and refused to leave that first night. There was the clearing where he had taught me how to use Stratagrams. There was the path to the river where we swam together on warm days.

Max paused at what had once been the entrance of the cottage.

“It’s not that bad,” he said, after a long moment. It was indeed that bad.

“I don’t see a wreck. I see…” I spread my arms out. “Opportunity.”

Max wound his arms around my waist, and my outstretched hands fell to his shoulders. His eyes, despite their darker hue, sparkled.

“I like your new eyes,” I said. “Have I told you that?” “They’re my old eyes, actually.”

“I like them anyway.”

He smiled, and I wondered if it would ever stop being the most magnificent sight I had ever seen.

“I will still address you by the same title, mysterious snake man.” He snorted. “It no longer fits.”

“It will always fit.”

“If you say so, demanding rot goddess.”

The words disappeared in his kiss. Slow, thorough, tender.

We would build a new house, I decided. A little bigger, though not by much. A huge garden. A sizable library. A warm fireplace.

I told Max this, between kisses, and he hummed his approval.

Then he stopped and pulled away, just enough to look into my face, his expression going suddenly pensive. I traced the lines between his features.

I love you did not say enough.

I love you did not say, thank you for being my home. I love you did not say, thank you for being my future.

But all at once, I felt those things, so overwhelming that I couldn’t speak. And the only thing I could think to choke out were those words, “I love you,” even though there was so much they left unsaid.

He gave me a long stare, brow knitted, thumb thoughtfully tracing the curve of my lip.

“It’s a strange feeling,” he said, at last. “To look forward to so much.”

It was. So odd, to minds so unpracticed in such things. But now it surrounded us, so bright it couldn’t be ignored, and maybe, just maybe, we were healing enough to let it in.

It was hard not to, when Max swept me up in his arms again, when he kissed me and smiled against my mouth, when he laid me down in the garden where two broken souls had met and built a home in each other.

Hope.