Darian's POV
I wake with a headache pounding behind my eyes, the kind that feels stitched out of regret and too little sleep. For a moment I lie still, staring at the ceiling of my apartment, waiting for the fog in my skull to clear. It doesn’t. The hollow ache in my chest sits exactly where I left it last night.
My confession to Serenya echoes through me like a blow I dealt myself.
I turn my face into the pillow and groan.
I should never have said it. Gods, what a stupid thing to say.
The words are automatic by now. A loop. A miserable litany. I’ve been replaying that moment—her eyes, her shock, the silence after—for hours, long after midnight. I told myself over and over that I’d let it go by morning.
“No point mulling over it again,” I mutter aloud as if saying it can command the
