Page 51 of Iron Roses

Your beloved sister.

I hold the last letter to my chest as if it can warm the part of me that’s gone cold. My breath shakes, my body wracked with quiet sobs that echo into the still room. My vision blurs from the tears, but something sits in the box—a flash of faded blue beneath the stack of paper.

I reach for it.

A ribbon. Thin, frayed at the edges, soft from years of wear. I run it between my fingers.

My ribbon.

I remember pressing it into Giovanna’s palm when I was seven. She braided it into her hair before every violin recital, telling me it was her “good luck charm.” I didn’t think she kept it.

The sob that tears from me is different. Lower. Thicker. A dam giving way.

“I forgive you,” I whisper, voice cracking, eyes clenched shut.

“I forgive you,” I cry again, pressing the ribbon to my lips.

I don’t know how long I sit like that. Knees drawn up, the ribbon curled into my fist, her words echoing like a prayer that came too late but still matters.

Eventually, I rise and go outside.

The breeze is soft, brushing my legs beneath the shirt that still smells like him. I feel hollow, raw, like every part of me has been turned inside out.

And then I see him.

Cassian stands at the far edge of the garden, where the marble railing overlooks the vineyards below. The light on his bare skin, painting gold into the lines of his shoulders, the curve of his spine. He doesn’t turn when I approach.

But he knows I’m there.

My footsteps falter, then stop altogether. He faces me.

And when he sees my face, he moves.

He comes to me, not like a man in a hurry but like someone crossing sacred ground.

He lifts a hand—rough, warm, steady—and brushes his thumb beneath my eye. My skin stings where his calluses meet the salt of my tears. His touch is reverent, lingering, like he’s memorizing the shape of grief on my face.

I exhale, shaky and shallow.

“Why do I remember her?” I whisper. “And you? It’s like—”

The ribbon trembles in my grip.

His gaze falls to the ribbon. His expression shifts, darkens, softens.

My lips part. “You bound yourself to me…and her too.”

Tears fall again. I don’t wipe them away.

Cassian nods once.

He steps closer. Close enough that our shoulders nearly touch.

I don’t speak.

I just stare at him—and for the first time, I don’t see a stranger. I see every version of us that ever lived, stitched together through someone who never stopped loving us both.

I curl the ribbon in my fingers. It shakes.

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