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And for the first time since I had stepped through those great doors, the strangest, most unfamiliar thing settled warm in my chest.

I felt as though I might actually belong.

We danced until the song wound to its close, and the moment the final note rang out, the musicians swept straight into something brighter and livelier. All around us, couples began stepping out onto the floor to join. The spell of having it all to ourselves broke gently, the hall filling with movement and laughter once more.

But Atlas didn’t let go of my hand.

Instead, he drew it up, pressed a slow kiss to my knuckles, and leaned in close, his lips brushing the shell of my ear.

“Walk with me,” he said.

He led me from the dance floor, away from the crush and the candlelight, through a tall arched door I hadn’t noticed before. We then made our way down a quiet corridor where the noise of the banquet faded to a distant hum. Then he drew back a heavy curtain, and I forgot how to breathe.

The balcony beyond was something straight out of a dream.

It stretched wide beneath the open sky, and someone had strung it with what must have been a hundred lanterns and candles. Their warm light flickered against pale stone and pooled gold across the floor. Climbing flowers spilled over the balustrade, and beyond it, far below, the city glittered. Above us, the night sky of Theïkós blazed with more stars than I had ever seen in my life, scattered thick and bright and impossible across the dark.

I drifted to the edge, my hands settling on the cool stone, and breathed it all in.

Behind me, I felt Atlas move close. Then his arms came around me, crossing over mine, drawing my back against the solid warmth of his chest, and his chin came to rest gently atop my head.

Neither of us spoke for a while, content with each other’s company and the landscape ahead of us.

“I understand,” he said at last, his voice low and quiet against my hair. “That this is all a great deal to take in. The crown. The court. A whole world that isn’t your own.” His arms tightened, just slightly. “But I am asking you to stay, Alexandra. I am asking you to stay with me.”

“Atlas…” I sighed.

“You don’t have to answer me. Not tonight, not tomorrow.” He paused before continuing on, “Just promise me you’ll think about it. I know what I’m asking of you. I know the idea of being my queen is no small thing to take on, and I also know exactly what I am asking you to give up.” His thumb brushed slowly over the back of my hand.

“Just think about it. That is all I ask.”

And despite everything, despite the enormity of it sitting heavy in my chest, a laugh slipped out of me.

“What I’m giving up,” I repeated. “You mean my glamorous life back home? Sleeping on a cot you could break a rib on, running drills before sunrise, never quite knowing whether tonight was the night something with too many teeth came over the wall?” I shook my head, smiling out at the stars. “Living off ration packs that all tasted like wet cardboard and regret. Truly, Your Majesty, however, will I bear the loss?”

I felt his quiet huff of laughter against my hair.

“We will win this,” he said, and there was iron beneath the softness now. “I swear it to you. We will hunt the darkness down to its very last shadow. And eventually, Alexandra, we will free your world of it too. I will give you that. Your home, made safe again.”

I went still.

Because that was a thought, I hadn’t let myself hold for a very long time. Home. Safe.

The possibility of it, real and whole, somewhere out there beyond the Rift. My parents, who I hadn’t seen in more than three years. Who I had taught myself not to think about because thinking about them hurt too much to bear. Uncle Rick, a world away, waiting. A life I had assumed the Rift had stolen from me forever suddenly dangled there in the dark like something I might actually be allowed to reach for. And I waited for the old, familiar ache.

The homesickness.

The pull.

It came, but it came quieter than I expected. Smaller. Because standing there, wrapped in his arms beneath a foreign sky full of impossible stars, I tried to imagine it. Going back. A world without him in it.

And I couldn’t.

I genuinely, honestly couldn’t.

The realization moved through me slowly, cold and certain, and I stared out at the glittering dark. Out to the city below, and the man’s arms wrapped warm around me. Then I asked myself the only question that suddenly seemed to matter.

Was my life really so wonderful before the Rift tore it all open?