The paper unfolded in her hands.
Three days since Caelan told her where to find it. She hadn't been ready to open it until now. The edges had softened from her fingers brushing them over and over.
His handwriting filled the page. Angular letters pressed hard into parchment, no flourishes, just him.
Sera,
I'm writing this because I won't be able to say it. Every time I try, I look at you and forget how words work.
He called her Sera only when they were alone.
You're hiding something from me. I've watched you hold yourself like something hurts when you think I'm not looking. I've caught you gripping the doorframe to steady yourself.
I don't need you to tell me what it is. Whatever you're carrying, it doesn't change this.
Her throat closed. He had known all this time that something was wrong with her body. Had watched her hide it and said nothing, and still he went to war.
I keep thinking about that first ride to Flamekeep. Three hours in that carriage with you in my lap and your mouth on my neck, your hands pulling at my collar while mine slipped under your dress. Both of us trying not to cross the line we'd drawn.
I thought I was going to lose my mind before we passed through the gates.
And after. Waking up with you still in my arms. Watching you breathe. Feeling your heartbeat against my chest.
I've never had that before. Someone I wanted to wake up next to. Someone whose breathing I wanted to memorize.
That ride. She remembered his hands, the way they shook when he touched her face, the way his voice cracked when he said her name.
Neither of them had slept much that night.
That morning on the ride to the palace. You fell asleep against my shoulder. I kissed your hair when I thought you weren't awake.
You were awake, weren't you?
She almost laughed. She had felt that kiss and kept her breathing steady so he wouldn't stop. Had pressed closer and pretended to be unconscious just to feel him be tender when he thought himself unobserved.
I've commanded armies. Held dying soldiers. Watched cities burn. None of it scares me the way you do.
You make me want things I never let myself want. A home. A future. Someone to come back to.
I used to think wanting made you weak. So I stopped. Stopped letting myself imagine anything beyond the next battle, the next campaign, the next war.
Then you looked at me like I was worth trusting. And I was done.
The words blurred as tears spilled down her cheeks. Not dramatic sobbing, just tears that kept coming because he had put everything on paper and made himself vulnerable in a way he never allowed anyone to see.
Every night I reach across the bed and you're not there. Every morning I wake up listening for you.
I love you.
It started before you knew my name. Before the court. Before any of this.
You saved my life once. You don't remember. I was just a boy, drowning in water I shouldn't have fallen into. You pulled me out. Pressed your mouth to mine to give me breath. Used your hands to stop the bleeding. Then you left before I could speak.
I never forgot your face. I watched you from a distance for years. Told myself I would speak to you when I was worthy of it. When I had proven myself. When the time was right.
Then they announced your engagement to the man who pushed me off that cliff.
I should have come to you sooner. I should have told you everything before it was too late. Instead I waited, and I lost you to him. I tore the announcement in half and tried to forget you. Tried to bury what I felt and move on. It didn't work. Nothing worked.
When your message came asking for help, I said yes before I finished reading it. Not for politics. Not for duty. Because a girl in a red cloak once saved a boy without asking why. And part of me has belonged to you ever since.
She stopped breathing.
A boy drowning. A red cloak. She had saved him years ago, before courts and marriages and betrayals, and never thought of it again.
And Alaric had pushed him. The man she married had shoved Caelan off a cliff when they were boys and likely forgot it by the next morning.
I keep trying to remember what my life was like before you. I can't. It feels like everything before was just waiting.
She held the letter against her chest, paper crinkling under her grip.
I wrote this for when you miss me. Something to hold when I'm not there.
I love you. I'll keep saying it until you believe me.
Wait for me.
Yours.
Caelan
She went through it twice more, letting every word settle into her bones.
He had written this before he left, before their last night together, before she told him about the scars. He had trusted her to open it when she was ready.
The nightstand drawer stuck and then gave. She pulled parchment free, her fingers unsteady.
Caelan,
I've read your letter four times now. I can barely hold the pen.
You were right. I was hiding something.
The fire-scars were spreading. Yona said I had two weeks before they reached my heart. I didn't tell you because I knew you'd stay, and the front needed you more than I did.
It's fixed now. Lucien found a way to stabilize them. I have months. Perhaps years.
You don't have to race back. I'll be here when this ends.
I don't remember the cliff or the boy I pulled from the water. I wish I could tell you I knew, even then, that you would matter to me.
I can't give you that. What I can give you is this: I'm glad I saved you, glad you lived, glad you waited.
You waited all those years. You watched me make the wrong choice and said nothing. Don't blame yourself for that. We found each other eventually. That's what matters now.
I keep rereading the part about the carriage. About you coming undone before we even arrived. I was the same. Every time you touched me, I forgot why we'd drawn any lines at all.
And that morning. You asked if I was awake.
I wasn't asleep. I felt you kiss my hair. I kept my eyes closed because I wanted you to do it again. Because you're different when you let your guard down. Softer. And I wanted to be the one who got to see that.
I love you too. I should have said it more instead of holding it back like something that needed to be rationed.
Come back to me. We have years to make up for.
Yours.
Seraphina
She sealed it and pressed the D'Lorien crest into warm wax.
A knock came at the door. Liora stood in the doorway with an expression carefully neutral, the kind of neutral that meant bad news.
Behind her stood a military courier with dust-covered armor and red-rimmed eyes from days of hard riding.
"A dispatch from the eastern command, my lady."
Seraphina took the sealed document and cracked it open.
Thornwall fortress under sustained assault with casualties mounting by the hour. Duke Vorenthal's unit has been repositioned to reinforce the southern approach where fighting is heaviest. Communication routes remain compromised.
Heavy fighting. Repositioned to the worst of it. Communication compromised.
She knew how to read military dispatches. "Casualties mounting" meant the bodies were piling up faster than they could count. "Communication routes compromised" meant messengers were dying on the roads.
Caelan was in the thick of it right now, while she sat here holding his love letter.
"The courier can take a reply."
Her letter sat in her other hand, telling him not to race back, written before she knew how bad things had become.
Part of her wanted to tear it open and add more. Tell him to be careful. Tell him she couldn't survive losing him.
Those words would only add weight to shoulders already carrying too much.
"Yes. I have a reply."
She handed it to the courier.
"The routes are dangerous, my lady. Messengers have been lost."
"I know. Please, get it to him safely."
The courier nodded and left. Liora stayed.
"You need to eat."
"I know."
She didn't move from the window. She watched the courier cross the courtyard and mount his horse and disappear down the eastern road toward Thornwall, toward Caelan.
Three days to reach the fortress. Three more for her letter to find him. Longer still if the roads were as deadly as the courier warned.
She tucked Caelan's letter into her robe, close to her skin. The paper was soft now, edges slightly frayed from her grip.
Her fire-scars didn't burn. Her body was fine. Everything else felt like it might shatter.
Somewhere past those gates, Caelan was fighting. Maybe bleeding. Maybe worse. And she could do nothing except wait.
A maid came to collect the untouched dinner tray with her head down, refusing to meet Seraphina's eyes.
At the door, the maid's fingers moved in a small gesture, quick and furtive. A warding sign against evil.
Against her.