Instead, I studied her. The moonlight wove silver into her hair, caught against the fury in her eyes, and for a moment I forgot she was my enemy. She was simplyElena. A fire too bright to belong in my world, yet standing here in it all the same.
She must have felt my gaze, for she turned sharply. “What are you staring at?”
I almost smiled. “At someone who calls me by my name.”
Her lips parted, and the faintest flush touched her cheeks. She turned away quickly, but not before I caught it.
My shadowed heart stirred, restless with something I could not name.
She paced once, then turned to me. “What now?”
“Now,” I said, “you return to Solaris. You will dig where I cannot. Question the Elders. Pull at the threads they have hidden. If I am wrong, if your city is innocent, you will prove it. If I am right…” I let the rest hang between us, heavy with implication.
Her mouth pressed into a thin line. She did not want to admit the possibility. “And you?”
“I remain here. Waiting.”
Her eyes flicked over me, suspicious. “You’ll just… trust me to come back?”
The laugh that broke from me startled even myself. Low, humorless, but real. “Trust has never been my way. But tonight you spoke my name. And for that alone, I will wait.”
Her lips parted as though to retort, but she stopped. Whatever words had been on her tongue, she swallowed them. Instead, she asked, “Does it hurt? Hearing it again after so long?”
“Yes.” My honesty surprised us both. “It hurts because it reminds me that I was once a man. And because it tempts me to believe I could be again.”
Her gaze softened, and the dangerous warmth in her eyes undid me more than any blade could. “You are still a man, Dario Morelli,” she said quietly. “Shadow does not erase that.”
The words pierced straight through the armor I had worn for a hundred years. I could not answer. I could only look at her, devouring the shape of her mouth, the light in her eyes, the conviction in her voice.
I wanted to believe her. Gods help me, I wanted to.
At last I found my voice. “Be careful with such words, Elena Serrano. They are more dangerous than fire.”
She tilted her head, lips curving faintly. “Then perhaps I mean to burn you.”
The shadows within me shivered, torn between terror and something else. Something like longing.
A gust of wind swept through the forest, rustling the black leaves. The wards hummed faintly, reminding me of their unbroken strength. The night was deep, but dawn would come soon.
For a long moment we only stood there, staring across the fragile bridge we had built. Light and shadow, predator and prey, yet neither striking.
“You should rest,” I said, finally. “Just before dawn, I will loosen the wards enough for you to pass. You’ll have one day to return to Solaris before they close again.”
She nodded. Her poise was perfect, but I could see the exhaustion in the lines of her shoulders. She had been burning on sheer will for too long.
“Then I’ll return in two days,” she said.
The words struck like a chord in the silence. A promise, tentative but real. She would return.
To me.
I bowed my head. “Two days.” I waved a hand, and my shadows pulled back, parting like a curtain. She walked through them, her crimson robes brushing against the black. For a moment, she seemed like a flame moving through the night: fragile, beautiful, alive.
And when she disappeared from sight, the forest felt emptier than it ever had.
I stood there long after she was gone, her name echoing in my mind.Elena Serrano.At the sound of it woven with mine—Dario Morelli—until shadow and light tangled in a way I couldnot undo.
Hope was a dangerous thing. It had ruined me once. It could ruin me again.
