Kaori liked to walk of a morning in the Imperial Gardens. It was seldom too hot or too cold for such exercise in the Holy City; even in the heat of summer or the frozen days of winter, he could be found following a familiar path, treading the walkways that wound through the gardens.

Almost always, his path took him past the snowblossom tree where he and Aun had exchanged tender words many a time when they had been together. It was also the place where she had bidden him farewell forever.

Kaori missed Aun. Her absence had been an aching hole in his heart for the first many months after she'd gone. Time had moved on now and so had he—five years was a long time, and Kaori's life had not ended the day Aun walked away—but he had not taken another partner, nor even another lover, since Aun's departure.

He had loved her. Even now, considering having a similar depth of feeling for someone else felt so impossible that the very idea of trying to find someone chafed. And Kaori, who had never been precious about his affections, physical or otherwise—he'd been a man who enjoyed life, including the pleasures of it, far more than his brothers—had become much more reserved about how he spent his time.

Five years had changed him, as it had changed almost everyone in the palace. Kaori had his first gray hairs now, just the finest dusting, winking pale among the golden strands of his hair. He had absorbed himself not simply in the reading of books but also in the writing of one—a memoir about his time during the War of the Arcborn Rebellion, as therapeutic for him as it was bound to be useful for history.

And yes, on quiet mornings like this, as he took his stroll through the gardens, he missed Aun.

This morning, she was uncommonly close to his mind. In fact, when he saw a woman standing underneath what he still thought of as their snowblossom tree, he thought it was Aun at first. The woman was dressed in blue, as Aun had been the day she had left, although there was now no apron to be seen. As he approached, a child stepped out from the other side of the woman's skirts.

A mirage?

A hallucination?

Kaori paused in the path, staring at the figure standing before him. She did not seem to have noticed him just yet. She was looking down at the child and saying something as she reached for his hand. The dappled light and shadow of the snowblossom boughs waved and danced across her face.

Who is that child? Kaori wondered. If this were indeed a dream, some kind of fantasy turned dream...He stopped, a creeping sense of recognition sweeping over him. He could feel the breeze teasing its way through the branches, feel the solid path beneath his feet, smell the flowers, hear the birdsong...

...if this were indeed an illusion, it was the most convincing he had ever experienced.

"Aun?" Kaori whispered.

She turned toward him, her auburn hair falling over her shoulder, and her smile was as shy as it was brilliant, lighting up his heart like a beacon. In that moment it was as if the years had not passed, as if they had only yesterday stood here in this very place, hand in hand, and wondered about the future.

She said his name.

Kaori had stopped; now, he moved toward her, slowly. Part of him feared that if he moved too quickly, he would shatter the illusion. Aun straightened, and the child at her side—a boy, Kaori saw now, a boy just a year or two older than his niece Uarria—pressed in closer, drawing up a fistful of her skirts and looking up at Kaori with blue eyes. The boy's limpid gaze fixed first on Kaori's face and then trailed down, snagging on his abbreviated arm. He shrank back another half a step.

"It's all right, sweetheart," Aun said softly, looking down at the boy.

"Aun. You're back. You're home." Kaori stopped a couple of paces away from her, doing his best to conceal his shock. "I can't believe it. I had not thought to see you again. Ever again. You look—the same."

"And you look a bit more careworn," Aun said, turning that sweet smile onto Kaori instead. "How have you been, my prince?"

The sound of that term of endearment, light and playful, caused Kaori's heart to flip over in his breast. He shook his head, for a moment at a loss as to what he could say.

"I've been well. I have missed you. You—are you well, Aun? Are you happy?"

"I am." Aun let her left hand come to rest atop the little boy's auburn curls. She glanced down at him and nodded toward Kaori, and the boy stepped forward shyly, both hands knotted into the front of his tunic.

"Kaori," Aun said slowly, seriously. "This is Kaolo."

That name hung in the silence for a moment, and Kaori needed nothing else to make it clear to him what Aun was saying.

It was the tradition in Penrua for children to take part of their names from their parents. For a boy, it was typical for his name to begin the same way his father's did.

Kaori stared at Kaolo, meeting his blue eyes. A clumsy mental calculation confirmed for him that the child could be his. He was the right age. He could have been conceived before Aun's departure.

Kaori.

Kaolo.

Father and son.

"I need to sit down," breathed Kaori. He staggered back from the pair of them. His knees struck the seat of a wooden bench standing nearby, and he sank down to sit, his eyes fixed on the boy. "I need to sit down," he repeated, although he had already accomplished as much.

"You are sitting," said Kaolo. He was watching Kaori, his shy curiosity having changed into bemusement.

This, absurdly, made Kaori laugh. Kaolo's hesitant answering smile seemed an encouraging sign.

"Are you sure?" Kaori breathed, looking up at Aun.

"I am certain," she replied. She looked sad, anxious; the lips he had kissed so often were pressed lightly together, and Aun's soft gaze shifted between her son and Kaori. "Kaolo, you remember I told you we were going to the Holy City to meet your father. This is him."

Kaolo edged back again, peering at Kaori from around the fall of Aun's skirt, but he did not hide his face.

"Goddess above," Kaori murmured.

Aun sat next to him on the bench. "I'm sorry."

"Why didn't you tell me? ...Did you know? Did you know the day you left?"

The silence was enough to answer Kaori's question in itself. Aun looked down at her hands, twisting her fingers together. "Kaolo, why don't you walk a little down the path and tell me how many flowers you can count? Don't go so far that we can't see you, mind."

Kaolo took up his mission dutifully, and Kaori watched him for a few minutes as he counted flowers, pausing now and then to sniff a bloom or rub his fingers over a leaf. The child was a stranger; even so, Kaori felt a connection with him, a kinship. It made his heart ache.

He looked at Aun, who was still twisting her hands together anxiously in her lap. It was unlike her—unlike the woman he'd known. She was gazing after Kaolo, watching him as Kaori had been.

"Did you think I would cast you away?" Kaori asked. "Did you think I would not claim him?"

Aun shrugged one shoulder. She was silent for another minute, and Kaori's confusion and frustration mounted. He felt betrayed. Just before he spoke again, perhaps to say something hard, Aun turned toward him. Her eyes were misty.

"I wanted to believe that you wouldn't," she said. "I wanted so badly to believe that you would want him. Want us. But love is foolish, Kaori. When you looked at me...I knew you always saw me as an Arcborn woman. No matter when. No matter where. I was afraid that it would never change. I was afraid you had reservations, or that..."

Kaori waited, his heart aching. "What, Aun?"

"...That it was temporary." She dropped her gaze again.

"Temporary," he echoed. "I wanted to marry you. I offered you marriage, the day you left."

"I know. I remember." Aun shook her head, her gaze growing distant. "But I had already made up my mind. I only wish I had told you sooner. I have regretted breaking your heart every day since then. I thought it was the only way."

"I grieved you for months." Kaori laughed, a hollow, disbelieving sound. "I—I could hardly drag myself out of my bed. I missed you, Aun. I had built up a future for us, dreaming, and the day you left, you took yourself and all of those hopes along with you. And now, you tell me you took my son? My child?"

Aun's brow wrinkled as she closed her eyes tightly. "I was so afraid," she whispered, her voice breaking. "If it had been only me, I think I would have accepted you that day, but Kaori, I could not bear the thought of you finding some fault, some flaw in our child, I could not—" She drew a breath as if to steady herself, but her composure broke, and she started to cry.

Kaori did not even hesitate. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his embrace, warm and tight. He looked over her shoulder, reassuring himself that the boy was still in sight, counting the bright gentleman's-buttons that grew along the path. "It's okay. Shhhh. Don't cry, Aun, please. Please don't cry."

"I'm sorry. I kept him from you, and it's unforgivable."

Struggling past the pain of betrayal and confusion, Kaori shushed Aun again. "You thought to protect him. You wanted to keep him safe. Listen to me, my darling." He drew back, taking Aun's tear-stained face between his hands. "I loved you. This...This hurts me. I'll not deny it. But look at what we were."

"I should have—"

"Shhh." Kaori brushed a tear away with his thumb. "I was a Starborn prince. You were an Arcborn healer. We'd just ended a war. I was following my heart. You were trying to follow your mind. A surer path. A surer path, right?"

Aun put her hand over Kaori's, shaking her head. "How can you say that?"

"Because it's true. You could only have guessed what a child would mean to us, and you did what you thought was right." Up until that moment, Kaori had been speaking mostly out of a desire to soothe Aun and stem her tears, intending to explore his own true emotions when he had time to think, but now, even has he spoke, he realized he believed what he was saying. "I knew you then, and I know you now. You did not want to hurt me."

With a sob, Aun shook her head. "I didn't. I swear to you, Kaori, I loved you."

"Then let us move on from there." Kaori leaned in and kissed Aun's forehead. It was sweet, but brief and chaste. He would keep himself in check, despite how it felt seeing this woman again after so long. "I only ask..." He glanced toward Kaolo and his gentleman's-buttons. The boy was cheerfully plucking the flowers, fashioning them into a bouquet Kaori knew he would offer to his mother, ignorant of any trouble he might get into for harvesting from the imperial gardens.

"Yes. Yes, with my whole heart. That's why I brought him here, Kaori. To know you. He's such a good boy. So smart. So kind. The worst thing I've ever done is deprived you of knowing him."

Kaori smiled. "It is not impossible, making up for lost time."