Page 146 of Ashes to Ashes

He starts gathering papers, but I catch his hand, stilling him.

“Finnian. I appreciate this. For helping me understand myself. For not making me feel broken for wanting what I want.”

His fingers tighten around mine. “You’re not broken, Ash. You’re just... expansive. Some hearts are built to love widely.”

“Is yours?”

“You’re teaching me something I never learned in all my centuries of study.” His voice goes soft. “That perhaps some connections are worth the risk of complete destruction. Worth becoming someone I don’t recognize if it means becoming someone worthy of you.”

The confession hangs between us, raw and dangerous.

“Finnian...”

“We should continue,” he says, but doesn’t move to retrieve the manuscript. “The trial begins at twilight.”

“In a moment.” I lean forward, close enough to catch his scent, to see the way his pupils dilate. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Why are you helping me like this? After last night, after knowing I chose someone else—why are you still here?”

His smile turns soft, devastating. “Because this isn’t about possession—though I confess the concept held more appeal than I expected.” His voice carries careful distance that doesn’t quite hide the emotion underneath. “This is about seeing you survive to make whatever choices your heart demands. Even if those choices require more courage than I possess.”

Before I can respond, before I can tell him he’s breaking my heart too, Academy bells begin to toll.

Not the gentle chimes that mark class periods. The deep, resonant notes that signal gathering twilight.

Trial time approaches.

“Two hours,” Finnian says. “We should review the protocol one more time. The questions you’re most likely to face.”

But I can’t focus on trial preparation anymore. All I can think about is the man sitting across from me, whose careful distance can’t hide the depth of his devotion. Who’s spent his morning ensuring my survival even though it meant cataloguing all the ways I might choose others over him.

“Whatever truths that trial drags out of me.” I step closer, close enough to see the gold flecks in his eyes. “Whatever they make me admit about wanting all of you—know that this matters. You matter. Not as my teacher or my ally, but as... you.”

His hand stills. “Even if it’s not enough?” The question carries three centuries of careful distance finally cracking. “Even if watching you choose others breaks something in me I didn’t know could break?”

“Especially then.”

Something shifts in his expression, walls cracking to reveal hope and fear and want in equal measure. His thumb traces his bottom lip one final time, and I realize I want to be the one doing that.

“Two hours,” he says again, but his voice has gone rough.

“Two hours,” I agree.

Two hours before I discover if I can speak the truth about wanting love without limits—or if I’ll retreat back into the safe assumption that I have to choose just one.

Two hours before I discover if speaking the truth about loving without limits will free me from assumptions I didn’t know I was carrying.

My truth is not a burden—it is my inheritance.

Outside, twilight approaches with the inevitability of destiny. Love isn’t the liability they taught me it was—it’s the revolution they never saw coming.

I will not shrink to fit their expectations.

The Trial of Truth will demand honesty, and I’ll give them more than they bargained for.

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