Sera's Pov
"...so that's when the guards found me," I finished quietly, my voice sounding as uncertain as I felt.
Lucian sat across from me, his elbows on his knees, fingers laced loosely together, his expression unreadable.
I waited.
I'd just unloaded a surreal, ridiculous, borderline impossible story on him—that I somehow sleep-walked or dream-walked or moon-goddess-knows-what out of the fortress walls in my sleep, encountered Kael and his rogue crew, tripped like a toddler, was recognized, surrounded, and then… let go.
The silence stretched. Lucian's jaw tensed, that muscle along his cheek ticking ever so slightly.
"Say something," I muttered, folding my arms, suddenly uncertain if he believed me at all.
His eyes met mine. Calm. Dark. Serious. "I'm glad you're alive."
That wasn't the part that caught me off guard. It was what followed.
