Aldrik hovered for several long breaths before finally returning to the bed. Her love settled on the bed next to her but did not touch her, the small distance between them feeling like the world.

 The silence crossed the threshold into agonizing when he finally spoke. “Look at me.”

 “No.”

 “Do not fight me, not now.” His hand pulled on her shoulder. “Please.”

 It was the please that called through to her. Vhalla rolled and looked up at her Emperor with red and burning eyes. Her face was twisted in grief and glistening with snot and tears. Aldrik caressed the expression, replying with tenderness.

 “I am . . .” He took a deep breath, “Relieved you are all right.”

 Vhalla squeezed her eyes shut. He didn’t even understand a fraction of how she’d wronged them.

 “I was so worried.” His lips ghosted against her forehead. “I woke, and you weren’t there. I went to Fritz, and when you weren’t with him . . . If I’d not found you, I was ready to burn down the Crossroads in a rage to find you.”

 “Don’t say that,” Vhalla hissed in agony.

 “It’s the truth.”

 “You said it before.” She remembered him bidding her farewell at a secret door the first time they were at the Crossroads. “Do not say it again. We have to be different than before.”

 “Different?”

 “I traded fates. We must break the vortex. We must do better.” Vhalla felt sick at herself all over again for what she’d done. The night was becoming a messy blob of memories that were distorting with time. Did she really have any idea what the truth was? Or was she just slowly losing her mind?

 “What are you talking about?”

 “There was a Firebearer.” Vhalla struggled to collect herself to say what needed to be said. “I met her the last time I came. She . . . then she told me. . . She told me I would lose you. She told me of Victor. I didn’t understand. I was worried, so I went—”

 “You went out? Tonight?” The tender tones were fading from his words.

 “I wanted to go alone . . .”

 “To some curiosity shop? To a Firebearer with some smoke and mirror tricks? Why didn’t you tell me?” Justified agitation furrowed his brow.

 “I didn’t want you to tell me not to go.”

 “So you knew I would disapprove?” His touch vanished, and Aldrik withdrew. “You couldn’t respect my wishes. No, not even enough to try to talk it over with me?”

 “I should’ve explained.”

 “You should have. You don’t keep secrets from me, not you.” There was genuine pain now in his voice. His old insecurities flared brightly, and the wounds that had scarred his heart saw light once more.

 “You know I don’t.” Vhalla looked at him for a long moment, challenging him to object.

 He cursed softly and looked away.

 “I’m sorry, I handled this poorly. I just wanted to know if . . . if we would really make it.”

 “You shouldn’t have to ask a Firebearer to know that,” he mumbled.

 “It isn’t as though we haven’t been on the run for weeks! I was scared, Aldrik. I thought that I could find something, some small reassurance to sooth the worry in my heart but . . .” She’d talked herself to the threshold she’d feared all along. How could she summarize what had transpired in a way that he would take seriously?

 “But?” Aldrik pressed. “This Firebearer, did they touch you?” he growled. There was a protective dangerous gleam in his eyes. “Is it because of them that we lost . . .” Aldrik couldn’t bring himself to say it.

 “No.” This was her responsibility, and Vhalla would accept it. “That was my fault alone.”

 “It’s not your fault,” he mumbled.

 She had to take a second and brace herself for what had to come next. Vhalla wanted to put the night behind her so badly, but she couldn’t do that if there were truths left unsaid. Through the slowly thickening haze in her head, she forced herself to carry on.

 “I gave away the watch you made.”

 He was so silent she wondered if he somehow hadn’t heard her. “You . . . what?”

 “I had a reason!” Vhalla freed her hand from the blanket, thrusting her silver trophy before him. “This, Aldrik, with this—”

 “Another pocket watch? Did you tire of mine so you wanted something more—”

 “It’s a vessel!” Their pattern of interruption ended with that. His mouth hung open on the unformed word she had stolen from him with the truth. “It’s a vessel.”

 “What?”

 “It’s an unintentional vessel I made back when the Firebearer last looked into the flames to answer my question,” Vhalla explained quickly. “With this . . . With this I should be able to . . .”

 Her words failed. Despite what she had just told him, the hurt had yet to vanish from his expression. Vhalla suspected she could’ve said she traded his watch for the entire Crescent Continent, and Aldrik would’ve still been pained. Tonight, she hadn’t paid the price for her choices. Aldrik had.

 “It’s my fault . . . I wanted you, so I stayed. And because I stayed, I was where Victor could get me. All the people who have died, Erion, Craig, Raylynn, your father—it’s all because of me. All the pain is my responsibility. With this, with my magic, I can right what I wronged. I can beat Victor at his own game. He thinks he can kill or force all Windwalkers into hiding. But I will stand against him. I will do what I must for our people before I do what I want for myself.”

 He was as still as a statue. Vhalla took the weight of his gaze upon her shoulders as well. She was carrying the world, and he was but one point upon it. Everything was lost if she did not make her vow a reality.

 “I wanted to make things right. I hurt you while doing so, and I’m sorry. I never wanted to. But I . . .”

 The heat of his palm on her lower abdomen silenced her. Vhalla stared at the man who was to be her husband. A storm raged just behind the darkness of his eyes.

 He sighed. “What have I done to you?”

 “Nothing I didn’t ask for.” She’d asked to be Empress. She’d chosen it the moment she’d chosen him. She’d been so busy surviving that she hadn’t accepted what that really meant. Now it wasn’t just about her survival, but her people’s.

 “You should sleep. Your body needs to heal.”

 Vhalla leaned forward, pressing her forehead into his sternum. Aldrik shifted to snake his arms around her. “I lost him,” she breathed.

 “No.”

 “The son of your dreams—” she tried to continue.

 “Was not this child.”

 Vhalla wished she could make him understand. His dreams had been scattered to the wind. Their future, the red lines of fate he had looked forward to, had been interrupted. But Vhalla didn’t try to make Aldrik comprehend the truth that was filling the hollow within her. Only one of them would have to bear this truth, and that would be her.