There was silence after Lara asked it.
Not an awkward silence. Not the kind that came from uncertainty about what had been said. It was too full for that. Too real. The words had fallen between them and changed the shape of the night all over again.
Would you run away with me?
Sarisa sat very still by the window, the communication device warm in her hands, her breath caught somewhere high and tight in her chest.
Outside, the gardens lay silver under the moon. Inside, her room was quiet enough that she could hear the tiny crackle of the bedside lamp and, far beyond the door, the faint shift of guards changing their weight in the corridor.
On the other end of the device, Lara exhaled first.
Then, rougher now, a little embarrassed by her own honesty, she said, "Sorry. That was stupid of me. You've got so much responsibility."
Sarisa shut her eyes.
Of all the things Lara could have said after a question like that, the apology somehow hurt most.
Not because it was wrong, but because it carried that old, infuriating instinct Lara had to step back from the edge of what she wanted the moment she feared wanting it too loudly might become selfish.
"No," Sarisa said at once, before Lara could retreat any farther into that place. "You are not."
Her voice came out stronger than she felt.
Lara was quiet again.
Sarisa drew in one slow breath. "If I could," she said, softer now, "I would run away with you."
The words left her and seemed to stay glowing in the air between them, impossible and clean and terribly true.
On the other end of the device, Lara made a sound so small Sarisa almost missed it. A breath. A laugh. Something breaking open.
"Gods," Lara murmured.
Sarisa lowered her gaze to the silver device in her hands. "That's the worst part, isn't it?"
"What is?"
"That I mean it." Her mouth twisted into a sad little smile that no one could see. "If you asked me at the wrong moment, I might do it. I might leave the ring, the wedding, the palace, all of it, and just go."
Lara did not answer right away.
When she did, her voice had gone very quiet. "Sarisa…"
"I know." She leaned her temple against the back of the chair.
"I know what would happen. I know what it would mean. My mother would call it proof she was right about you. The court would call me unstable. Vaelen would become a public victim all over again. Aliyah would be dragged into it. I know."
"You'd lose a lot."
"Yes."
"But you still thought it."
Sarisa laughed softly, bitter and warm at once. "I think about it more than I should."
The confession settled gently. It felt dangerous to admit and impossible not to.
On the other side of the magic, Lara shifted.
Sarisa could hear the soft rustle of sheets and imagined her sitting up in bed now, hair falling loose, one hand dragged through it in the way she had when she was feeling too much and pretending she wasn't.
"I shouldn't have asked," Lara said.
"That's not true."
"It is."
"No." Sarisa's fingers tightened around the device. "I needed to hear that you would."
The answer came back immediately. "I would. In a heartbeat."
The butterflies came again, ridiculous and painful and alive. Sarisa hated that she was blushing alone in the dark like a girl in her first romance instead of a princess half-engaged to the wrong future.
She let herself smile anyway.
"I know," she said.
Lara laughed once under her breath. "You keep saying that."
"Because I do know." Sarisa's voice gentled.
"That's the problem. I know you mean things like that. I know if I appeared at your door tomorrow with Aliyah and one bag and said go, you would not ask where or how or whether it was sensible. You would just take my hand and start walking."
"Obviously."
The certainty of it made Sarisa's chest ache in that sweet, unbearable way only Lara seemed able to provoke. She looked out at the moonlit garden and imagined it for one dangerous second.
No palace. No wedding. No court watching her every breath. Just Aliyah half-asleep on a horse or in a carriage, Lara beside her, the road ahead unknown and therefore honest.
"Tell me," Lara said.
Sarisa blinked. "What?"
"That version. The one in your head." Lara's voice was softer now, almost shy in the asking of it. "If we ran. Tell me where we'd go."
Sarisa let out the smallest laugh. "You're terrible."
"Very. Tell me anyway."
Sarisa closed her eyes and let herself have the fantasy.
"Somewhere warm," she said. "Somewhere with trees. Not too crowded. A place where Aliyah can make noise without someone reminding her she's in a palace."
Lara hummed approval.
"A house," Sarisa went on, surprising herself with how quickly the details came, as if some hidden part of her had already built it long ago.
"Not grand. Just… ours. A kitchen with too many herbs drying by the window because you swore you'd use them and then forgot. A garden I'd pretend to organize while Aliyah and Kaelith ruin it every afternoon."
"Kaelith is coming too?"
"She will find us if we don't bring her."
"That is true."
Sarisa smiled. "You'd leave your boots in the wrong place every day and I'd complain every day and you'd say I'm only angry because I secretly enjoy having something to scold you for."
"I would absolutely say that."
"You would be insufferable."
"I already am."
"And at night," Sarisa said, quieter now, "when Aliyah is asleep and the house is finally still, I wouldn't have to say goodbye to you at all."
The silence that followed was heavier this time. Not empty. Full. Lara breathed once, and the sound alone carried more feeling than some people managed in a whole speech.
"I want that," Lara said.
Sarisa's throat tightened. "I know."
"No, I mean it. Not just the running. The whole stupid thing. The house. You complaining about my boots. Aliyah yelling from the garden. You coming to bed and not having to leave before morning." Lara exhaled shakily.
"I want ordinary with you so badly it makes me feel half-mad."
That did something to her. Something deep and tender and dangerous.
Because yes. That was it. Not just passion. Not just escape. Ordinary. The sacred, impossible intimacy of ordinary.
Sarisa tucked her feet beneath her and held the device closer, as if that could narrow the distance. "You make impossible things sound almost reachable."
"No," Lara said. "You do that."
The room seemed to go softer around her.
A moonlit pause. Two women breathing into the same fragile line of magic. The whole world held at bay by silver runes and longing and the fact that neither of them had yet learned how to stop wanting what hurt.
At last Sarisa said, "I can't run tonight."
"I know."
"And tomorrow I still have a wedding planner, and a mother, and a prince who keeps trying to look hopeful at me over lunch."
Lara muttered something that sounded like a prayer for violence.
Sarisa smiled despite herself. "And you have Neris. And Aliyah. And whatever truth you're all trying to dig out of this mess."
"Yeah."
"So I can't run tonight," Sarisa repeated. "But don't apologize for asking."
Lara was quiet for one heartbeat, then two.
"Okay," she said at last.
"And one more thing?"
"Anything."
Sarisa let the smile curve properly this time, slow and real though Lara could not see it. "If the day ever comes when I can run," she said, "you had better ask me again."
The answer came without hesitation.
"I will."