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( It was probably close to midnight when Alisha arrived, taking her usual place on the ground just a stone’s throw away from the cliff’s edge. She found she liked this time of night: it was a deeper silence, a warmer darkness than if she had come just after sunset as she usually did.

Her greeting was an apology. “I’m sorry for being so late－and for taking so long. I’d like to visit as often as I used to, but there has been so much to do lately…” She knew she didn’t need to give an excuse－Sorey was always forgiving－but she looked forward to these visits, and encroaching on that privilege in any way always hit her with a twinge of guilt.

“Hyland and Rolance have agreed to setting up a midway point in the Basin,” she went on, looking in his direction as she made herself comfortable. “A small town under equal jurisdiction between the kingdoms.” )

Sorey was reclined on the grass, arms folded beneath his head. It was a clear night, his favorite kind, with more stars overhead than he could hope to count. “I heard about the joint town. I’m sure you were pretty busy with that for a while… but I bet you were excited, too,” he added with a knowing grin.

( “I’m looking forward to it,” she confessed with a sheepish smile. “It’s… quite a bit of pressure, but I feel I’m up to the challenge.” )

“I can’t wait to see it.”

( “I hope it’s doing well by the time you visit.” She chuckled quietly. “I’m certain Mikleo will be glad to tell you all about it.” )

“I’ve heard good things－mostly through Mikleo. It sounds like you really put your all into it－well, into everything, really.” There was some pride in his tone. “Not that I expected anything different. I knew you’d go far.”

( Her smile stayed as a comfortable silence took over, but her quiet sigh betrayed what was behind it. She ran her palm along the dry, sparse grass, watching the blades bend beneath her touch but unable to feel them through her glove. Close, but not close enough.

She loved these visits, but a small part of her also dreaded them. All too soon she would have to leave again, returning to her life away from him, and it always hurt more than she thought it still should.

“I’m sure you don’t want to hear an apology,” she said at length, hesitantly. “All the same… I really am sorry that I can’t show it to you myself.” Her hand fell still. Her next breath was short, held, and then released slowly. Her smile turned a little wry. “I always tell myself that I won’t… let my emotions get the better of me when I’m here, but…”

It was hard. It was so hard, especially out here in the dark and silence with him, as close as she would ever be.

She quickly shook her head, willing away the pressure building in her chest, behind her eyes. Her voice remained steady; she’d had a lot of practice. “Please don’t take this the wrong way. You make me so happy, Sorey－you’ve given me nothing but good memories. It’s selfish of me to want anything more.”

－But she did, she always did, and had every day for the last three years now－)

“You’re strong,” he said quietly. “Whatever your regrets, I know you learned from them. But…” He smiled as a star suddenly shot across the blue-black sky. “I don’t think there was ever anything to worry about. To be honest, you taught me a lot－about strength, and what it means to support other people.” He gave a short, apologetic laugh and ran a hand distractedly through his hair. “I guess I’m just saying… that if I was able to go so far, then you were always a given. You had a lot more promise than I did.”

( Alisha took her time breathing in again, out again, until her unspoken words were no longer thick in her throat and she was sure she could speak without wavering. Even then she took her time, closing her eyes and focusing on nothing more than the evening breeze and starlight on her skin. That, too, was something he had taught her: the love of such small, precious things.

“I’ll be alright,” she promised him. “You gave me so much－and you’ve trusted me more than I ever realized. I won’t let any of it go to waste. But…” Her smile was a small one now, sad and wistful. “You showed me how to be honest with myself. And I would be lying if I said I was perfectly happy－and I would be lying to you, as well.” And that was the most unthinkable offense of all.

“So…” Her next inhale was sharp, and with her next quiet exhale, finally, came the tears. “Forgive me for still seeming so frail－but－if it’s you… I don’t mind,” she said quietly. “I’m alright with being frail around you.”

She pulled her legs close, pressed her face to her knees, and gave in.

Crying didn’t hurt anymore. It was a small, selfish release, an outlet for all the feelings she normally pushed aside: regret, but not shame; sadness, but not grief; longing, but not despair. The fleeting thoughts of what if and what could have been no longer kept her up at night, but they still stung and teased her dreams from time to time. Out here, with him, she could let those thoughts take over, if just for a little while－out here she was a little closer, and that was all she could ask for anymore.

She went undisturbed for several minutes, as expected, until her eyes and throat were finally dry and she wasn’t clutching her ankles quite so tightly. When at last she raised her head, she raised it high, back straight and shoulders steady and expression once again controlled, her grateful smile back in place even as her tears blurred the stars and the single pillar of white light on the horizon. )

After a few minutes of silence Sorey finally sat up. He hadn’t been sure what he would say when he came here, so perhaps the few words he’d found were, for now, enough.

He climbed to his feet and turned to the tall monument, a marble pillar aged by centuries but still beautiful, still commanding in presence as it stood at nearly twice his height. He touched his hand to the inscription, fingertips tracing the engraved letters in the white surface. He didn’t have to struggle to read in the low light; he felt out her birth name, her epitaph－Beloved Princess of Hyland, Ambassador to Rolance, and Leader of the People－and, beneath that, spelled out in the alphabet of the Ancient Tongue: Melphis Amekia.

He breathed a small sound that wasn’t quite a laugh, wasn’t quite a sigh.