Chapter 120 -Avianna-

Chapter 120 -Avianna-
\-Avianna-

Avi.

I close my eyes.

I'm all right.

I know you are.

His voice is soft inside my head.

But before you go, I need you to listen to me.

Something in his tone makes the room around me disappear. Not literally… Father's hand is still wrapped around mine, Agameus stands somewhere near the foot of my bed, and I can hear the quiet rustle of the High Priestess's robes as she moves beside him. But Caylix is suddenly closer than all of them.

I'm listening.

The tether opens wider and warmth pours through it. Not magic, just him. Love so deep and steady that my breath catches beneath the weight of it.

You know me.

His emotions deepen through the tether, wrapping around me until I can feel the absolute certainty behind every word.

And I know you, Avi. I know the sound you make when you're trying not to laugh. I know you pretend not to be afraid when everyone else needs you to be brave. I know you steal the blankets and then accuse me of doing it. I know exactly how your mind feels when you're about to do something reckless and convince yourself it's clever.

It usually is clever.

Avi.

Sorry.

His love brushes through me again.

I know every version of you I've been lucky enough to have. The little girl who trusted a strange boy when she had no idea who he was... The princess I swore to protect who became my best friend before she became the love of my life... And the woman who is going to be my Queen...

My eyes burn.

She cannot take that from me.

There is no hesitation, no fear, only certainty.

She can show you a thousand versions of me. She can put another woman in my arms. She can give me another life. She can make me look at you and pretend I don't know your name.

His presence presses deeper into mine.

But none of them are me.

A tear slips from the corner of my eye into my hair.

This is me... Right here... Loving you.

I squeeze Father's hand without meaning to.

I chose you when I didn't know I was choosing. I chose you when I thought loving you would cost me everything. I chose you when I believed I would have to stand beside you while you married someone else. And when I learned I had a crown, a family, an entire kingdom waiting for me...

His love swells so powerfully through the tether that for one breath, I cannot feel anything else.

I still chose you.

My chest aches.

Caylix...

And I will keep choosing you.

His voice softens.

Tomorrow. Ten years from now. Fifty, if the gods give them to us. In every castle, every kingdom, every life we build after this one. You are my home, Avi.

That breaks something open inside me. Every lingering piece of Elise's voice and forced visions seem to lose its hold at once.

If she shows you my face, don't believe it. If she uses my voice, don't listen. If she tells you I've forgotten you, find me here.

Warmth pulses through the tether.

I'll be here… I will always be here.

I let out a shaking breath. For thirteen years, this is what Caylix has done for me. Before the crown was mine… Before the prophecy… Whenever the world became too loud, Caylix brought me back to something simple.

Him.

Me.

Us.

And standing on the edge of a vision where Elise might be waiting for me, I realize something. Elise had made a mistake. She had shown me my deepest fears because she thought knowing them made me weaker, but she hadn't understood that on the other side of every one of them was the same thing.

Caylix.

And loving him had never made me weak. It was where I had always been strongest.

Avi?

I breathe in slowly.

I'm here.

His warmth settles around me.

Good.

A pause. Then, so softly I almost feel the words more than hear them…

I love you. You are safe. You are mine, and I am yours. Nothing she shows you changes what is real.

My fingers curl against the blankets.

I love you too.

I know.

And this time when I close my eyes, there is no fear waiting for me in the darkness, there is only him. So I reach for the vision.

I think of Rhydon's letter… The eastern watchtower… Charlotte… The strange pull of truth beneath words she had sworn were complete…

And then I let the magic open.

The bedroom falls away and cold air brushes across my face. My eyes open. The eastern watchtower rises ahead of me. It is older than I remember, its stone darkened by years of rain and neglect. Long grass moves around it, bending beneath an evening wind I can feel even though I know my body is still lying safely beneath the blankets in my room.

For one strange second, I exist in both places. Father's hand around mine but grass beneath my feet, Agameus murmuring something I cannot quite make out, wind moving through the trees.

And Caylix.

I'm here.

I know.

I don't move, I just observe first. Voices drift from the other side of the tower. One of them belongs to my sister.

"You don't get to do that."

I freeze. Charlotte… She's here. Relief hits hard enough that my knees almost weaken, but I force myself to remain still.

I found her.

Caylix's presence intensifies.

Is she hurt?

I edge closer to the tower.

I don't know yet.

"Charlotte…"

Rhydon.

My stomach turns at the sound of his voice. I move carefully around the crumbling stone until I can see them. Charlotte stands several feet from him.She is unrestrained. No ropes. No guards holding her. No visible injury.

Her crimson cloak hangs from her shoulders, and Rhydon's letter is crushed in one fist.

Rhydon stands opposite her. Elise is farther away, leaning against what remains of the tower wall with her arms crossed, looking thoroughly bored by whatever argument she has apparently been forced to witness.

Charlotte isn't looking at her, she is staring directly at Rhydon.

"You sent me a letter."

"I did."

"You told me you wanted me to be your Queen."

Rhydon's jaw tightens.

"I know what I wrote."

"Then say it."

He frowns. "Say what?"

"Say it to my face."

Something inside me sinks. This isn't what I expected. Charlotte isn't frightened, she isn't asking him to let her go. She's angry… Furious, actually. But underneath it… I feel something else. Something I recognize now because my magic no longer whispers the way it once did.

Truth moves differently, it settles into me like certainty. And Charlotte wants him to say it.

She's there willingly.

The thought feels awful. Caylix is quiet for a moment.

Are you sure?

I watch my sister.

Yes.

Rhydon glances toward Elise as Charlotte laughs bitterly.

"No, Rhydon. Don't you dare look at her."