"When her magic met mine, it wasn't war, it was recognition. As if the stars had always meant for our souls to find one another and remember what love feels like in its truest form."
The silence between us stretched. Not the awkward kind, not brittle or uncertain, but warm. Weighted. Like a breath shared between two storms waiting to break. I had been looked at before. Desired. Admired. But Ysara did not look at me like I was something to claim.
She looked at me like I was something she had found. And that… terrified me. "You're playing with fire," I murmured. Ysara tilted her head slightly, lips twitching in amusement. "I am fire, Ellowen. I am just curious to see if you will stop running on your own."
That did it, and something inside me cracked quietly, like frost breaking beneath a sunbeam.
"You think I've been running?" I asked.
"I think," she said, voice low and threaded with heat, "you have been surviving. Beautifully. Fiercely. But not fully."
