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He folds himself around me with a possessive gentleness that steadies my spinning mind.
His hands move over me not with haste but with care, lingering on shoulders, back, the small places where the world’s weight gathers.
He kisses my temple, my jaw, and each touch is an affirmation.
“Kael,” I whimper.
“You don’t have to talk now, Telya. I can just hold you. I-I can’t bear to think of a Nightfall without you,” he whispers into my hair. “Can’t imaginemewithoutyou, my viyella.”
The words are simple and raw and true.
They settle into me like sun.
I know he means it—the way his fingers press as if to make sure I’m real, the way his breath matches mine.
Yes, there are things to speak of later, debts to reckon, questions to answer.
But right now the world narrows to heat and salt and the press of him against me.
I tilt my face up and tell him what he needs to hear in return, “Kael, I need you.”
But my confession is less language than the way I melt into him, the way my hands find the lines of his back.
He hums—half laugh, half vow—and holds me like I am the only shore left in the storm.
For a long time we let the water wash over us, letting the whirlpool scrub the battle from our bones.
The keep sighs around us, safe and steady, and in that breath of quiet I feel the tether tighten.
Him to me, me to him, an unbreakable line that will be a map through whatever comes next.
The water curls around us, steam rising like mist on the tide, Kael’s arms locking me close as if he’ll never let me go.
His words echo in my bones.
Can’t imagine me without you, my viyella.
Something inside me breaks wide open.
The walls I’ve been holding, the doubts Amber tried to plant, even the regrets from a past I barely understand—all of it slips away.
What remains is raw, desperate, undeniable.
I tilt my face up and kiss him, not softly this time, but hungrily, recklessly, as though the ocean might swallow me whole if I stop.
He groans into my mouth, the sound low and reverent, and the whirlpool itself seems to shudder with us.
“I’m yours,” I whisper against his lips, water sliding between us. “Completely. No walls, no holding back.”
His eyes flare, storm-bright, and I see his own surrender there, fierce and beautiful.
“You mean that? You would take me as your viyen willingly?”
“My what?”
“It is the male counterpart for viyella. It meanstrue matein Nightfall,” he says, and I can see the hope shining in his stormy eyes.
“Oh yes, Kael. My viyen,” I whisper and feel his pride surge at the sound of the word spilling from my lips.
