He answers swiftly enough that I know he’s been thinking on this for a long while.

“Tas wants to learn scimcraft along with a few other children in the Saif caravan,” he says. “And our future emperor will eventually need lessons in a dozen subjects.”

The thought of Elias teaching Tas, the Saif children, and Zacharias makes my heart melt a bit. “You’ll be an incredible teacher,” I chuckle. “Though I feel for those children. They will not get away with anything.”

Elias pulls away from me, and I realize after a moment that he is holding an object, spinning it so fast that I cannot get a look at it.

“Before any of that, I—ah—have something for you.” He stops and lifts his hands to reveal an armlet—intricately carved with apricot blossoms and cherry blossoms and Tala blossoms, a veritable garden of fruit. Along the edges, in vivid script, he has inscribed the names of my family. Words fail me, and I reach out to take it, but he does not give it to me. Not yet.

“I wish I could live a thousand lives so I could fall in love with you a thousand times,” he says. “But if all we get is this one, and I share it with you, then I will never want for anything, if—if you—would—if you—” He stops, hands gripped so tight around the armlet that I fear he’ll break it.

“Yes. Yes.” I take it from him and put it on. “Yes!” I cannot say it enough.

He pulls me up into a kiss that reminds me of why I want to spend my life with him, of all of the things I want with him. Adventures, I told him. Meals. Late nights. Rainy walks.

Later—much later—I lift my cloak from the earth and shake the dust off.

“You can’t complain.” He runs his hand through his hair, and a torrent of sand pours out. His smile is a white flash in the night. “You did say you wanted me to talk you out of your clothes in inappropriate places.”

He dodges my shove with a laugh, and I pull him to his feet.

Elias laces his fingers through mine as we walk. He tells me what he hopes to do on his first full day home, his baritone thrumming in my veins like the sweetest, deepest oud playing a song that I wish to hear forever. What a small thing it seems, to walk with the one you love. To look forward to a day with them. I marvel at the simplicity of this moment. And I thank the skies for the miracle of it.

A thick layer of cloud rests atop the eastern horizon, and the sky pales, the deep orange glow of an ember breathed into life. High above, the stars whisper their goodbyes and fade into the depthless blue dome of the firmament.