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Joshua stood ahead of Jote on the crest of a cliff overlooking the ruins of his childhood home. The banners of Rosaria fluttered faintly on distant ramparts, surrounded by mist and the remnants of the town where memory resisted clarity. He'd led her there without a word and said nothing as they walked the narrow trail past the wildflowers and debris. They only stopped once when he touched the gnarled trunk of a tree grown wild and crooked, his face withering with no explanation. The scent of wet earth and sprouting flowers was around them as the sky above stretched wide, dispersing the moon's illumination through clouds that set the stars behind them alight. His hair moved slightly in the breeze. One hand lingered on the hilt of his sword while the other clenched tightly near his side. Jote's arms folded in a composed posture, observing him, more attuned to his silence than any other sound. Distracted, he dug his boot into the loose dirt while his gaze fixed far beyond the castle.
"When I was a boy," he began with a voice softer than usual. "I used to come here to escape my tutors. I thought if I ran fast enough, I'd become invisible. Just another child, not the Phoenix. I'd watch shepherds with their dogs, and I would convince myself I could stay hidden forever." His lips curved wistfully. "I'd be alone for a time, but Clive would always come after me, sometimes with Jill. We would laugh, then try to touch the clouds. And then I'd wish, foolishly, I suppose, that nothing would ever change."
Jote observed him silently where a moment when his facade cracked, revealing his vulnerability. He avoided her gaze, and the distance between them felt insurmountable.
"Back then, I thought I knew how my life would unfold. I would grow up and take my place as the next archduke. Maybe then I'd find someone noble enough to match a duty I didn't want." He paused for a moment, considering the words. "I even imagined her once. She had dark hair and a poised, quiet demeanor, but I never remembered her name. She wasn't real." He drew a breath, then let it out in a low, self-mocking laugh. "But then the Night of Flames happened, and everything after that—" He broke off and pressed his fist to his mouth, smothering the memory. His eyes glittered with pain, fixed upon the ruins. "Sometimes I wonder...If the Night of Flames never happened, if I'd lived the life planned for me, would I have ever met you?"
Her eyes widened, and her throat tightened. She opened her mouth to reply, but he kept going. He turned to look at her, revealing his gaze, which was unguarded and filled with quiet torment. "Would I have ever known the sound of your voice? How do you fight without fear? The way you walk ahead of me when you're angry but always glance back to make sure I'm still there?"
He stepped closer to her and shook his head slowly, closing his eyes. "I think I would have grown up soft, surrounded by comfort and tradition...Smiling at strangers. Maybe I would have been kind or good, but I would never be the same man standing here." His voice trembled on the edge of something dangerous. He was torn between the life he could have had and the person he had become.
Jote's heart clenched. She wanted to reach out for him, but her hands fisted her outer coat instead. She swallowed, and her reply came in a tremulous yet clear tone. "You think we would have been strangers?"
"I don't know." Joshua's reply was raw. "Cyril said you became a part of the Undying because of my mother's choices. You were not meant to be a part of this, not my exile, not all of this sorrow. If that night hadn't burned—if I'd stayed that boy on the hill—I doubt I would have been worthy of you. You could have been nothing but a name in a report, or a girl glimpsed in the market... Someone I'd pass by and never know." He shook his head harshly. "Maybe that would have been kinder to you."
She stared at him for a long time before she responded, trying to pull him out of the darkness he was stepping into.
"Maybe, but maybe not. Perhaps I'd have been a name in a temple or a daughter traded in politics. I might have bowed to you at court and disappeared into the crowd."
Joshua's eyes flew open, and he looked stricken.
"But," she added with a hardened voice, "that version of you would have never needed me."
The silence settled thickly between them, and Joshua's voice dropped, low and ragged. "But I did need you," he said, taking another step toward her. "I still do. I think a part of me always will." His vulnerability was discernible, his need for her a raw and unguarded emotion. The wind tousled his hair, but he made no attempt to fix it. "The Night of Flames tore everything apart," he continued, his voice cracking under the weight of his words. "I died that night, not all at once, but piece by piece, and some parts of me never returned."
He closed his eyes, his shoulders bowed, hurt by his confession. "If I never lost everything, I'd never become someone who—" His words faltered, shame and longing vying in his voice. "Sometimes, I think the Phoenix's fire destroyed everything I loved. And sometimes I think it was the only way I ever learned to love again."
Jote looked away, and the moonlight turned her eyes silver, but it couldn't hide their pain.
"If I could take it all back," he whispered, his voice heavy with regret. "The fire, the ruin, the death...If I could have spared you from all of it, even if it meant you'd never find me—"
"I wouldn't want that," she snapped, more harshly than intended.
He blinked, stunned.
"I wouldn't want to be spared from you," she said, quieter now, eyes wet. "Even if it means bleeding beside you or watching you suffer, knowing I can't stop it. I'd rather exist here, in the wreckage, with you than live a perfect life without you."
His jaw clenched. "Even if I don't survive it?"
He reached for her hand then, and her fingers tightened around his. They were rough from swordwork and wrapped in callus but still gentle as they laced into his. His grip wasn't commanding; it was asking like he couldn't breathe without her answer.
"Especially then." She lifted her eyes to him, lit by the moon, glassy with something fragile and fierce all at once. "Maybe it was ruin that brought us together, and maybe the fire carved a path only we could walk, but I don't think it was ruin that made us."
Joshua's brow furrowed, caught in the aching echo of her voice.
"Besides," she murmured. "We would have found each other anyway. In another kingdom or on another road. Maybe another face or another name." Her voice dipped lower as the wind stole strands of hair across her face. "Even if Phoenix Gate hadn't burned, and I was born into silk and duty. Even if you had grown up whole and untouched by grief."
Her other hand came up, though hesitant, and brushed his cheek with fingers so careful they barely touched him.
"I'd find you," she affirmed, and the raw edge of her feelings revealed how much it hurt.
Joshua laughed softly, but it cracked with ache. "You make it sound so simple."
"It never is, but I feel it whenever you look at me like this. Every time I dream of you, sometimes as you are, sometimes as someone else, somewhere I can never remember. But it's always you. It's always us."
He stared at her, and there was something wild and desperate in his gaze, like a man who'd been lost in the dark for years and only just remembered the sun. He brushed his thumb along her cheek, gentle as a whisper. "If that's true, if there are other worlds, other lives—would you choose me again?"
She didn't hesitate. "Yes," she breathed. "A thousand times, I would choose you. In every life."
He closed the distance, pressed his forehead to hers, and his breath shook against her lips. His hand trembled where it gripped hers like he'd fall apart if she let him go. And he whispered, not aloud, but into her, into her soul, through the fire that bound him:
"O mia lost elan. Tu isag elythe."
Jote closed her eyes, and she smiled at the promise that, somehow, they would always find each other again. For that heartbeat, on the lonely hill above Rosaria, destiny felt less like a curse and more like a vow whispered between two souls who could never be parted, not by fire, nor fate, nor the passage of time.