Florence, days later
The city was quiet.
Not the unnatural quiet of Caedra's illusions, or the stillness that followed bloodshed—but a true, aching, human quiet. The kind that came after too much grief and just enough hope to make it through the next sunrise.
Esmé sat alone on the edge of the old cistern in the Palazzo's garden. She had come here every morning since the battle beneath Santa Verdiana, drawn not by duty, but by the need for space.
The stone was cold beneath her.
Her thoughts were heavy.
Not broken—just tired.
She had faced Caedra.
She had survived.
But something inside her had changed.
Not her strength.
Not her will.
Her center.
———————————————————
She dipped her hand into the water, watching it ripple in expanding circles.
Her reflection stared back, familiar and unfamiliar at once. She wasn't who she had been when she entered this world of hidden sigils and veiled power. Her face had the same shape, the same eyes—but her gaze carried weight now.
Cost.
She didn't hear Luca approach.
But she felt him.
He moved like the night—subtle, steady, constant.
He sat beside her, wordless at first, his cloak brushing hers.
They watched the water.
Then, finally, he asked, "Do you hate her?"
"Caedra?" Esmé shook her head. "No. I fear what I could have become if I'd made her choices."
"And what keeps you from them?"
"I remember."
He looked at her. "Memory breaks most people."
"I know," she said. "But mine holds me together."
Silence again.
Then: "You haven't asked what I saw."
Luca turned to her. "If you want to tell me, I'll listen."
She did.
She told him everything.
The mirror. The vision of her mother. The soft, dangerous temptation of being a child again. The weight of almost forgetting who she was.
When she finished, she asked, "Why didn't you pull me out?"
His voice was low. "Because I couldn't save you from that. Not without stealing something from you. You had to choose your way back."
Esmé studied him.
"You trusted me."
"Always."
They walked the gardens in silence afterward, their steps slow, unhurried.
At the edge of the olive trees, Esmé stopped and turned to face him.
"I thought I'd feel triumphant."
"You were never fighting for glory."
"No," she whispered. "I was fighting to feel whole again."
"And do you?"
She shook her head. "Not yet."
"Then let's take the time."
————————————————————
Later, they sat by the fire in the east hall.
Luca told her of his years alone—wandering between wars, pretending to be a scholar, a ghost, a shadow. He spoke of one winter spent hiding in a cathedral basement, learning Latin from stained glass.
Esmé laughed softly. "Of course you learned Latin from glass."
"I watched how light bent through it," he said. "And I remembered how light can change everything it touches."
He turned to her then, more open than she had ever seen him.
"You've changed me."
She looked down. "I'm afraid of what that means."
"It means I'm no longer hiding from the world," he said. "I'm walking in it. Because you're here."
That night, she didn't return to her room.
She stayed beside him in the library, curled on the chaise near the fire, his cloak over her shoulders.
When she closed her eyes, she dreamed not of war or darkness—
—but of a rose glowing with light.
Alive.
Whole.