Sora's POV
Your daughter. I can arrange it. You can take her with you.
I stand there and let the words settle.
For one second, I let myself imagine it. Yuki, in my house. Yuki, safe, away from Lyra's whispers and a father who chose not to look. All of it fixed with one word from a king.
Then I think it the rest of the way through.
Take her where? Into a life she never asked for, away from the father she's spent years learning to love, pulled out of the only place she knows. She'd hate me for it. She'd blame me for it. And I'd have done it not because it was best for her, but because I couldn't stand to leave her behind.
That's not love. That's just wanting. And I've spent too long being clear-eyed about myself to dress up wanting as saving.
Yuki has a father who's finally, slowly, s
