Chapter 29

D ae was working on a new set of parameters for her summer project when Eunny stuck her head around the door. “Have a minute?”

Dae hummed in response, not looking up as she finished writing out her calculations for the timeframe before the figures left her. “Sure. It’s your office. I can finish this somewhere else if you need the room.”

“No. Don’t move.” Eunny vanished from sight.

Unperturbed, Dae kept writing. She’d leave for Den’olm in a few days, pending the formal offer of the fellowship. A water mage from Talihn had already contacted her about a new battery of tests for powering the wards without desiccating the surrounding landscape. Vaadt had set up a check-in schedule for the season and given Dae a vague outline of what her next steps would be come the fall term. With Calya busy cleaning up the fallout of Brint’s implosion, and Dae having received the barest of acknowledgment from her parents for passing Adept One, there wasn’t much cause to remain in the Valley. After Yerina debuted the summer solstice collection for the teashop, Dae would be northward bound once more.

Eunny announced her return with a dramatic clearing of her throat. “That thing I need you to fix?”

Dae looked up and went still as Ezzyn appeared in the doorway. His gaze flicked from her to Eunny, his expression registering a mix of surprise, followed closely by wry resignation at the turn of events.

Eunny returned her own baleful look. “Don’t fuck this up.” She gave him a nudge into the office and shut the door.

“Subtle,” he remarked.

“Indeed.” Dae sat back, arms crossing. “Not sure I qualify as something broken, either.”

She did. Was still prone to bouts of moping and sadness despite the prospects in every other aspect of her life being on the rise.

A faint smile didn’t do much to soften his wince. “I think she meant problems of my own making.” He reached inside his cloak’s interior pocket and pulled out a thin, sealed envelope. “Official notice for the summer fellowship. Congratulations.”

Dae accepted the letter with a murmur of thanks. She didn’t open it. “I saw your note.” A smirk spread across her face. “Garethe suggested I add myself to the chorus reminding you of your wrongness.”

Ezzyn groaned. “He’s insufferable.”

“Sit,” Dae said. “Or was that all?”

He hesitated, hands resting on the back of a chair. “I don’t want to intrude.”

From someone else, it might’ve sounded like a dodge, but he lingered, an undertone of hope in his voice.

She gestured toward the chair. “You know what my summer plans are, but what about you? I presume you’re finishing your Magister Three in Rhell since the lab’s all packed up.”

“My formal tier three work is on hold, though I am going back home,” he said. “You needn’t worry, I won’t go to Den’olm at all if you’d rather I not.”

“Because I’m such a distraction?” she murmured, mostly joking but still with a touch of hurt.

Ezzyn sighed, shoulders hunching. “I never should’ve called you that.” Tentatively, he put his hands on the desk. “I never meant it.”

“When I spoke with Garethe, he said that you brought up my proposal for the spring trip back over winter break. But that was it.” She held his gaze. “You didn’t push my family’s connections. Brint was lying for his own reasons—I know that now. But why did you let me believe you did?”

“I thought it was for the best. I thought it would be easier if you hated me. I thought—” He exhaled a sharp, mirthless laugh. “I thought if I told you the truth then I would only hurt you more in the end.”

“You’re a fool.” Dae shook her head. “How are you like this? You and your brilliant mind can’t fathom that other people want to help you.” She made a face over the complimentary words.

“Anadae.”

“I don’t want you to avoid Den’olm, Ezzyn. I don’t want you to avoid me.” She put her hand over his, squeezed his fingers. “I want to be with you. Not just in the moment, not some casual arrangement. Something real.”

He looked at their joined hands, a somber expression on his face. “I want all of that, too.”

“Then why do you sound so unsure?”

“Because I know some things will never change. I always will be a son of Rhell,” he said, thumb stroking over her hand. “I’m afraid that I’ll let work push you away again. Saving Rhell will always feel like my duty, and I don’t think I can ever let that go.”

Even with the Accord in place, the promise of resources and committed research, even with his own acknowledgment that he wasn’t alone in the fight to save his homeland, Ezzyn was still … himself. It was endearing and exasperating at once, but Dae had learned that about him a while ago. His drive was matched only by what she’d once thought was pride but now understood as the many fears he carried all tied together.

“I don’t want to hurt you again,” he said. “But I don’t know how to love you the right way. How to choose.”

“Why not both?” Dae said. “I don’t want you to give up your duty—I want you to make room for me, too. Stop thinking that you have to fix everything alone.”

For all her outward confidence, Dae was scared, too. A little. Ezzyn worried over loving her the right way, but what did she know of what such a thing looked like? How one did it and knew that their choices and actions were good ones.

She thought of her parents and how much their lives had changed, old passions abandoned for something less tangible. They were still together, both in marriage and in their social lives, yet the intimacy Dae remembered was gone. The memories of a happy family she had were faded around the edges, seemed more like dreams than past reality.

There was Calya, who loved her job and the sense of worth she derived from it, but romance? Love? No. Even if she reluctantly encouraged Dae to seek it, believed that her older sister had found it, love was rife with opportunities to disappoint.

And, how would Dae know? She’d spent years stuck to Brint, resigned herself to a desolate future. One couldn’t call what they’d had love, but Dae had been in the wrong kind of relationship for so long and done nothing to save herself until the end.

But … she had. In the end, she had escaped that sham of a relationship. Put herself on the path to forge a real one. And wasn’t worrying about loving someone the wrong way, that awareness of doing harm, wasn’t that a sign of something right? The kind of empathetic gesture she wanted in a partner? Dae was as much in the dark as Ezzyn when it came to this venture.

Nice to be on equal footing with a Magister level prince.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, either. My past history with this kind of thing hasn’t been great,” she said with a sad laugh. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been in love. I only know how I feel with you. It won’t be perfect. You’re still going to try and carry the world and I’m going to lose my godsdamned mind about it sometimes. But … try, with me. Isn’t that all we can ever do?”

Ezzyn’s hands went to her face, cradling her between his warm palms as he met her eyes. “I will never hurt you, not intentionally, ever again.”

She leaned into his touch. “Big promise. I like the sound of that.”

“I’m in love with you, Anadae.”

“Good.” She tilted her chin up. “Because I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you, too.”

Ezzyn’s head lowered until his mouth lay just out of reach. “Pretty sure? Sounds like I need to convince you.”

Dae pressed her lips against his. “Please do.”

Ezzyn deepened the kiss, one hand sliding down her neck, over her shoulder, gripping her side. He pulled her closer, only the damned desk was in the way. Nothing a little scoot and slide couldn’t—

“I don’t hear screaming or crying so I’m assuming you two are— Hey! This is a place of business!” Eunny stood in the doorway, hands on her hips.

Ezzyn ducked his head, the picture of contrition, while Dae laughed.

“Unless one of you is paying the other for that”—Eunny waved her hand in their direction—“get out here and vote on which snacks Auntie Yerina should serve for the solstice party.” She turned around without waiting to see if they followed.

Ezzyn offered her his hand. “Shall we?”

Dae went on her tiptoes to give him another quick, more chaste kiss. Then she laced her fingers with his and pulled him toward the door.