Alexander POV
She walked toward the battlefield with the calm of someone who had already accepted pain.
The moon clung to her hair like a blessing. Even her cloak caught with the wind in a light breeze and blew after her as a small fragment of the secret of something very holy. The edges of the stone terrace where she moved like a whorl of moon and fear away up the rise.
Every part of my body screamed at me to run to her.
To tell her she didn’t need to prove herself anymore. That the vote didn’t matter. That she had nothing left to earn.
But before I could take that step, Astrid’s voice cut the air beside me.
“She’s not doing this to leave you,” she said. “She’s doing it to stand beside you.”
I clenched my jaw. “I know.”
And I did. That was the damn problem.
Because I also knew wh
