Chapter 7: The Weight of Names
The garden was quiet, save for the soft trickle of the fountain.
Alaida sat beneath a tree with silver leaves, her fingers tracing the runes carved into the stone bench. She didn't know what they meant, but they felt old. Sacred. Like something her parents might have whispered about before the fire took them.
Thalion stood nearby, watching her again.
She didn't flinch this time.
"You always watch," she said softly.
"I listen," he replied.
"To what?"
"To what isn't said."
Alaida looked up. "And what do you hear?"
Thalion stepped closer, his boots silent on the moss. "You miss them."
"My parents?"
He nodded.
Alaida's voice trembled. "I remember my mother's hands. She used to braid my hair with lavender stems. My father carved wooden animals. He made me a lion once."
Thalion's gaze flickered. "A lion?"
She smiled faintly. "It had a crooked paw. I loved it anyway."
Silence stretched between them, but it wasn't cold. It was soft. Like the hush before a storm that never comes.
Thalion sat beside her, not touching, but near.
"My mother's name was Serelith," he said. "She planted this garden. She said beauty was a kind of rebellion."
Alaida turned to him. "Against what?"
"Against the crown. Against the silence it demands."
She studied his face—bronze skin, pale hair, eyes like winter. "And you? What does your name mean?"
Thalion looked at her, truly looked.
"It means steadfast," he said. "But I don't know if I am."
Alaida reached out, her fingers brushing the edge of his cloak.
"You are," she whispered. "You just haven't been seen yet."