When Adelasta woke up, the first thing she felt was softness.
The bed beneath her was warm and comfortable. The blanket was pulled up to her waist while the room around her remained dim and quiet. Her body felt heavy and numb. For a moment she simply stared at the ceiling while trying to remember where she was.
Then the memories came back in fragments.
She slowly turned her head until her eyes caught the shape of the room. It was some kind of house. She was wearing a white nightgown that felt soft against her skin in a way that made her realize someone had taken care of her while she slept.
The door opened quietly and Veneri walked in.
He looked calm, as he always did, though she could tell by the slight narrowing of his eyes that he had already noticed she was awake before she even properly moved. His long white hair was loose around his shoulders and he looked like he had been waiting for this exact moment. The first thing he said was not romantic or dramatic or even particularly emotional.
"You finally woke up. You've been asleep for eleven days. This is the eleventh morning you know."
He started to step closer, talking about washing her or helping her sit up the way he usually did when she was exhausted after training or travel. Before he could continue, Adelasta sat up too quickly for her numb body and threw her arms around him. She did not care that her limbs were weak or that her muscles still felt sluggish from the long sleep or that her head was still slightly hazy from the flood of memories. All that mattered in that moment was that he was here and not some scene trapped inside a memory.
He exhaled softly, then wrapped his arms around her in return without hesitation. Adelasta buried her face against him for a moment. Her voice was muffled against his chest and far more vulnerable than she usually allowed it to be.
"Why did you let me see all of that alone?"
Veneri's hand moved gently over her back.
"You saw the memories, huh? I knew you would."
Adelasta pulled back just enough to look at him, still clinging to his shirt like she was afraid he might disappear the second she loosened her grip.
"It is your Bane. You touched the Hourglass of Truth that I made for the Musica and the Divine Energy in it carried the memories straight to you. I figured it would happen the moment you touched it, which is why I made sure you were somewhere safe when it finally hit—"
"How long do you have left?"
Veneri looked at her for a second before answering.
"Technically, today is the last day. Tomorrow marks the one-year point Iridescent gave me."
Her whole face changed. She had just spent eleven days trapped inside the weight of his history and saw her man who had apparently spent years carrying impossible things alone. Now he was sitting in front of her telling her that one of those threats had given him a year to live.
She did not cry, not immediately because she was too angry for that first.
"You planned this for a year."
Veneri nodded once.
"I did."
"And you did not tell me?"
"No. I've been planning this for the entire year he gave me and now I'm done."
That was when Adelasta's anger finally cracked into something more helpless. He was a very good liar and even she admitted it.
She looked at him as though she wanted to scold him, kiss him, shake him and hold him all at once. She knew exactly how irresponsible it was for him to carry a threat like that alone and she also knew exactly why he had done it. That did not make it easier. If anything, it made it worse because she could see the logic in his silence even while hating it.
She hugged him again, this time slower and tighter, pressing her forehead against his shoulder while her breathing finally started to get steady.
"You fucking Idiot."
Veneri's hand settled against her back again.
"That's new."
"It's still true."
She pulled back just enough to look at his face properly. Her hands rose immediately, touching his jaw, then his cheek and then the side of his neck as if she needed to confirm every part of him was still intact. She looked at him the same way a wife would look at a husband after learning that he had spent 160 years without anyone he knew and a year preparing alone to face a threat that would definitely kill him.
"You should have told me. Even if I could not stop you, I should have known."
"I know."
"And if Iridescent tries anything—"
"He will."
"Then I'll help."
"I know you will."
Her body had not fully recovered from the sleep yet but the instinct to stay close to him had already won out over fatigue. She could feel how warm and composed he was even after everything she had seen in the memories. After a while, he rested his chin lightly against the top of her head.
"Do you need anything?"
She almost laughed at that.
What she needed was for him to stop being the kind of man who kept years of danger folded away inside himself like a habit, but that obviously was not something she could ask for and expect to happen overnight. So instead she tightened her arms around his waist and answered with the only practical thing her heart was willing to settle on right then.
"Stay here with me before you do your crazy self sacrificial plan."
Veneri's hand moved once through her hair.
"I'm here you know."
She shook her head.
"No, I mean stay here. Don't go anywhere until I stop being angry."
"That could take a while."
"Good."
He was silent for a moment, then asked in that calm, almost too-quiet way of his,
"Are you all right?"
Adelasta closed her eyes for a second, then answered honestly.
"No. Your Destiny is the worst. I'm tired of asking why you have to suffer a lot. You spent a hundred and sixty carrying this alone. I'm angry that you let me sleep through eleven days while my head was full of memories I didn't ask for. I'm angry that some stranger in a black suit thinks he can hand you a death sentence and call it strategy. And I'm also angry that after all of that, the only thing I want to do right now is stay in your arms and pretend none of it happened."
"That sounds just like you."
She huffed once and buried her face into his chest again, because it was either that or laugh, and right now laughter felt too close to tears. He let her hug him with one hand resting at her back while the other brushing her hair in a slow rhythm that was more comforting than any speech could have been. Outside the room, the morning remained quiet.