Page 56 of Unravelled
She could do this. Her voice could soften, her smile could entice, but neither ever truly betrayed her true feelings. She knew how to use the quiet space between words like a blade, disarming, precise, deliberate. She wasn’t afraid of the task. Not of the bar. Not the officer. What unsettled her, what scraped raw at the edge of her thoughts, was him. Tharion. What this would do to him? This might open up or tear them wider apart.
Maybe that’s why the Queen had taken their memories. Not to punish them, but to protect him. Maybe she’d seen the way he looked at Mira and decided it was too much for him. Maybe it had been easier for everyone to forget. Her eyes flicked to him. He hadn’t moved. His expression was faux calm, but his posture hadn’t softened. Still tense. Still wound tight, like every instinct in him was telling him toprotect her from this. She didn’t blame him. But he was given her the choice. Like she had told him.
Even if the space between them never closed, if the bond had dimmed to a flicker. Even when her name still stirred rumors in the palace halls. They were still bonded together. That meant something.
But she could also be a weapon. She could protect others. To buy time. To tip the scales when brute force wouldn’t. She drew in a slow, steadying breath. When she looked over to Torvyn, there was steel in her eyes.
“I’ll do it,” she said. Torvyn’s relief was almost imperceptible, but she saw it in the way his shoulders eased, just slightly.
Tharion, however, moved. A sharp inhale, a shift of weight, the faintest tightening of his jaw. She didn’t look at him.She already felt the way her choice cut into him.
Torvyn nodded. “We leave at midnight. The officer frequents the bar late.” Mira forced herself to return the nod. Torvyn lingered for only a moment longer before stepping toward the door. He paused, his hand on the frame, and looked back at her one last time. “This will work, Mira,” he said quietly. “I trust you.” And then he was gone.
The door shut behind him with a dull thud. Final. Heavy. The silence that followed wasn’t peaceful. It settled over the room, pressing in from all sides. She turned to face him but Tharion hadn’t moved.
Slowly, without a word, he crossed the space between them. His steps were quiet, his movements unhurried, as if he were approaching something fragile. Mira watched him, his presence steady, stopping just a breath away.
Without fanfare, he wrapped his arms around her. It wasn’t a sweeping gesture, wasn’t desperate. His arms folded around her back, his chest against her shoulder, and for a moment, everything else dropped away. The uprising, the officer. The silence between them. It all slipped into the background. She stood still, surprised, not by the touch, but by how familiar it felt. How easy. Like a language they hadn’t forgotten. After a breath, her hand came up rest tightly around him.
And then he spoke, voice low, close to her ear. “Mira,” he began, “I’m so sorry. For what I said. For how I’ve been.”
She didn’t pull back, but her shoulders tensed slightly beneath his hands.
“This isn’t your fault,” he murmured. “And it’s not mine, either. What they did … you didn’t choose any of it.” He pulled back enough to meet her gaze, still holding her in place. His expression was bare. Unmasked.
“All I’ve ever wanted is to keep you safe.” Her breath hitched, but she didn’t look away. “I don’t support this.” he said. “Not because I doubt you. But because it’s you. If it were anyone else, I’d be talking tactics. I’d be fine with it. But it’s not anyone else. It's you.” He swallowed.
“I’m coming with you. Not to stop you. To stand with you.” A beat passed. “And if anything happens, if he crosses a line, if you so much as look like you want out, I’ll help you No hesitation.”
Mira let the silence settle again. Not tense. Just full.Then, softly as she smiled, “You always do that.”
Tharion frowned. “Do what?”
Her gaze didn’t waver. “Make it hard to be angry with you.”
Tharion’s expression softened, and then, slowly, he smiled. Not wide. Just enough for her to see it was real. “Good,” he said. “I was starting to worry I’d lost the knack.”
She stepped back, just enough to breathe. “I’ll get ready,” she said. “You should too.”
She turned, quietly, and moved toward the small adjoining room.
???
Mira let out a slow breath as she stepped away from the waterfall’s steady cascade, the warm droplets rolling down her skin one last time before she reached for a towel. The water had cooled her, washing away the salt, the sweat, the exhaustion clinging to her like a second skin.
She wrapped the simple linen towel around herself, tucking it securely. Then, a knock. Her head snapped toward the door, muscles instinctively tensing. A pause. Tharion’s voice was low and composed.
“Mira.” She inhaled slowly, exhaling just as carefully.
“Yes?” The door cracked open just enough for her to see a sliver of him, a glimpse of his broad shoulders.
“May I come in?” His voice was careful, measured. A flicker of something passed through her, hesitation, awareness, something more tangled.
She shifted her grip on the towel, then sighed. “Go ahead.”
The door swung open a fraction more, just enough for him to step inside without intruding. She blinked at the sight before her. In his hands, a folded set of clothes. A small cosmetics kit. And resting atop them, a sealed note. Mira frowned.
Tharion stepped closer, extending the bundle toward her. “Instructions, they were just delivered”
