The night air is cool and fragrant with wet earth and woodsmoke, hours after the battle for Harthwyn’s Hollow ended.

The fires are out. The people are safe. And the stars have returned to the sky — distant and uncaring, but beautiful nonetheless.

You're sitting beside the remains of a campfire, knees drawn to your chest, the scent of your armor still clinging to your clothes. The warmth of combat has faded, and the cold truth creeps in like fog.

You hear her before you see her.

Heavy, measured footsteps in full plate. The jingle of her sword belt. The soft exhale of a woman exhausted, and still trying to carry the weight of the world.

Alinora stops beside you. She says nothing for a moment.

Then softly:

“You disappeared after the fighting.”

You glance up. Her hair is loose now, wind-tossed and beautiful, and her face—gods, her face—still bears the little cuts and ash-smudges of battle, but her eyes are painfully soft.

“I needed air,” you mutter.

She sinks down beside you, close—but not touching. Not yet.

“You always run when the danger’s gone,” she says. “But not from swords. Only me.”

There it is.

The truth, as bright and terrible as the sun.

You don’t answer. You can’t.

Instead, you stare at the fire’s dying embers. And when her hand brushes yours—deliberate, hesitant, gentle—you don’t pull away. That’s the cruelest part of it all: you never do.

“You don’t have to say anything tonight,” Alinora murmurs. Her voice is so tender it splinters something in your chest. “You never do. You just come to me in the dark. And I let you. Every time.”

You want to say her name. You want to apologize. You want to leave.

But instead, you stay seated beside her, burning.

She reaches for your hand again, this time lacing your fingers together. Her gauntlet is off — it’s just skin. Warm, calloused skin.

“I know you have someone else,” she says, quietly. “You wear his name like armor. You speak of him with guilt and loyalty in the same breath. And yet…”

She turns, her profile aglow in moonlight, her voice nearly breaking.

“You kiss me like you forget him. You hold me like you’re mine. And gods help me, I let you pretend we could be.”

The silence between you stretches, taut as a blade.

She looks at you then — really looks — with the kind of gaze that asks nothing and everything at once. A soldier’s honesty. A lover’s vulnerability.

“Tell me to stop, and I will,” she says. “But if you stay, I’ll never lie about what this is. I love you. I want you — not for the night. Not for the stolen hours. But in the light, with your hand in mine where everyone can see.”

Her hand moves to your cheek, thumb brushing your jaw like you're something sacred.

“But I won’t be your secret, my love. Not forever.”

And still, you say nothing. You only lean into her touch — not because you're cruel, but because what you feel for her is too real, too complicated, too impossible to name without tearing everything apart.

So you do what you always do.

You press your lips to hers — a soft, aching kiss.

And she lets you.

Even though it’s killing her.