Was waking up with a rotten chest in the life after death as agonisingly painful as it would be in the alive world? It felt like it must be. Esmera couldn't imagine it being any different as her heavy eyes forced themselves open, and she experienced her first moment of being a dead woman, a ghost, a fallen heroine doomed by a prophecy that once seemed to promise prosperity.

Esmera took a few breaths, all of them stabbing through her chest. She flinched, fighting back tears scratching at her eyelids and a whimper clawing at the inside of her throat. The pain wasn't like a knife itself but the stitches that came from repairing its wound.

She opened her eyes. The lining covering the window behind the purple silken curtains gathered on either side of the rail dampened the sunlight that entered from behind it. Even so, Esmera's eyes squealed in pain at the sight of it.

She looked around once her eyes had forgotten the darkness of death and accustomed to the light of the afterlife. The room cushioned Esmera as though she was a jewel, all lilac silk and aubergine velvet and silver embroidery. The bed she lay in could fit at least five more people, but she was glad she had it to herself.

In front of the bed stood a dresser with jewels scattered across it like costume jewellery. Even so, Esmera could tell from the glitter of the emeralds in the tiara and the rubies in the earrings that they were the real thing, just as the sparkle of the diamonds rimming the bottom edge of the lamps on either side of the bed told her that they too were genuine.

Esmera sat up slowly. Maybe dying wasn't so bad after all, if it had brought her to a place so beautiful and comfortable.

Again, pain throbbed at some part of Esmera that had no name on her mind. She traced the source of the pain to a green stone glowing in her chest. She blinked at it. It seemed familiar somehow. Maybe she had seen it before in a previous life. Maybe it had even been in the life she endured and enjoyed before this death.

She closed her eyes, returning to the cool, comfortable darkness behind her eyelids. Her mind flashed back to Tauram rushing to her with something green glowing in his beautiful hands, then back to dinner with Ruagu while that same green glowed around his neck.

It was the heartstone. And it was now in Esmera's chest.

Her eyes widened at the realisation.

She traced her fingers over it, over the vessels and chambers so intricately carved into it even as she shuddered to think it may be Nuredir's work.

Esmera barely had time to process what that would mean before the door to the room was opening, a slab of dark wood beyond the circle of luxury that had captured her attention. Tauram stood in it, filling it with his purple-clad frame.

The crown on his head was like a helmet with a plume spraying from the central point like water brushing against the upper frame of the door. His skin was paler than Esmera remembered, almost ashen. Although exhausted, he strode inside, his gait as fluid and his eyes as alive as ever, and that's when Esmera knew she was alive too.

Ecstasy gushed through her, escaping from some deep well within her. She found the strength to leap out of the bed and run to Tauram. Although wobbly, she made it to his arms that only had time to open halfway but somehow still manage to envelop her.

"Tauram..." Esmera could speak again, even though her voice was hoarse from disuse. Even better, she could hear again.

There was no doubt about it. Maybe Esmera had known death. Maybe she had been in that state for a moment, but that was no longer the case.

She hugged Tauram tighter, pressing her cheek to his chest as his arms encircled her. "I'm so, so sorry. About everything."

Her legs gave in beneath her, clearly not as accustomed to being alive as the rest of her was. She was lucky that Tauram was holding her so tightly that she didn't fall. She only became aware of his long, satin sleeves as they pressed into her back, realising that she was wearing nothing except for her underwear, but that didn't seem to bother Tauram at all. He only held her even tighter, dropping kisses among the rumpled curls crowning her head.
"My darling Esmera," Tauram murmured.

Esmera shattered into tears that he would still call her that.

After everything she had said to him the morning before, things that stung even though she hadn't meant it, even as it felt as though it had happened weeks ago.

After everything she had put him through when she deceived Ruagu and betrayed him while he watched and heard all of it.

That display had felt like the only option at the time, and that was why Esmera had forced herself to stomach it, but now, it made her want to throw up.

Tauram hadn't deserved that, and Esmera had still done it.

She wanted to summon the words to say how much she loved him, how sorry she was, how much she wanted his forgiveness even as she felt she hadn't earned it, but they didn't come, and all she could do was cry against his chest, staining his silk shirt with her tears.

Lundas rubbed against the backs of Esmera's bare legs, a comforting purr vibrating through his furry body. Jammas took flight from his head—apparently his second favourite perch in the kingdom—and came to settle on Esmera's instead, her loveable ball of feathers. Tauram withdrew, shaking his head at Esmera's familiar's intrusion even as she suppressed a disbelieving laugh at the fact that she was even alive to experience this at all.

Tauram scooped the snotty mess that was Esmera up into his arms and carried her back to the bed she had stumbled from. Spooked from his spot at the top of Esmera's head, Jammas returned to Lundas, ruffling his feathers in indignation that was probably more adorable than he had meant for it to be.

Esmera sighed as Tauram rested her on the cool sheets and soft bed. He sat and turned away from her for a moment, putting his golden crown down on a cushion Esmera hadn't noticed resting on a pedestal beside the bed, one so dark a purple it was almost black. Then he was hers again, and she drew closer to him as he lay beside her.

"Hey," he murmured, avoiding Esmera's eyes and tucking the covers tightly around her shoulders. "It's okay. We made it. Milatanur made it." His eyes darkened while Esmera watched. "Ruagu didn't."

It felt as though a weight that had been resting on Esmera's chest lifted from it. It hadn't been for nothing, even if she had broken Tauram's heart on this quest, even if she had died for it.

Some deep part of her knew the tyrant's fate was too gruesome to think about, but all the same, she couldn't help but ask about it. "What happened to him?"

Tauram's long pause before answering told her she was right about what she had thought. His narrow, black eyes found hers. "The Finnaaz army swarmed him, ripping him into body parts."
Esmera shuddered at the mere idea. She was glad she hadn't been around to hear that for herself.

"And then?" She just had to know more even as she was sure it was a bad idea.

"I'm not sure what became of him afterwards." Tauram shook his head.

The blood drained from Esmera's face even as she knew the usurper didn't deserve a kinder fate. The problem was that his gory end meant that Tauram had had to watch another horrific scene play out before him. She folded his hand into hers. As always, his eyes remained steady even as his fingers curled around hers, speaking of the grief he didn't voice.

Ruagu had been his best friend. Even after everything he had done, his death must've been hard to watch, his erasing from the world impossible to imagine.

"Does the army normally rip people apart?" asked Esmera softly.

Tauram shook his head, letting out a breath and flicking away a lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead in that adorable way. "No, but it's the most thorough way to kill an immortal sorcerer and eliminate his life force for good." He tilted his head, thinking. "I imagine the Finnaaz Army burned the pieces of him to ensure he'd never resurrect himself or be able to return to life by the work of others."

Esmera's stomach dropped. "Do you think there are others who would want to return Ruagu to life?"

In every fantasy book Esmera had heard of, death magic was not to be trifled with. The regaining of a lost life always came at a cost, and to her, such a cost would never be worth it for a man like Ruagu.
Tauram sighed. "I don't know. I don't think he was very loved as a person or a ruler, but one can never make any assumptions when it comes to Ruagu."

It was unsettling to think about, even though Esmera was sure the Finnaaz Army had lived up to their reputation and killed Ruagu finally and thoroughly. "What happened to the army afterwards Ruagu was dead?"

"They disposed of the yaoguai much quicker than I would've imagined, and then they disappeared." Tauram put an arm over her shoulder, pulling her closer into his chest. His heartbeat drumming against her reminded her that she no longer had one, not unless the cold, solid stone in her chest somehow also thrummed with life.

"What happened after I..." Esmera didn't know how to finish her sentence.

Had she died? Or merely passed out at the brink of death?
She hadn't wanted to trigger Tauram, but she realised she had done exactly that when his mouth quivered.

Tauram took a shaky breath, forcing his eyes closed, but not before Esmera saw the tears gleaming in his lovely eyes. "You died, Esmera." His voice broke. She heard the pain inside him as his words tore through his still-beating heart. The heart that was trying to tell her it beat for her.

She pressed her ear closer to it, fighting tears not at her own pain, which was fast fading, but for Tauram, which stabbed through her more fiercely than Ruagu's rotting touch had.

"I watched you die as I held you." Tauram rested his chin on Esmera's head. They soaked in the silence for a moment before he took a shaky breath. His voice was somehow steadier than she had expected when he spoke. "But the heartstone was lying on the floor after the army swarmed Ruagu"—Tauram's jaw tensed against Esmera—"and I swore that I wouldn't let the bastard take away someone else I loved."

Esmera let his words sink in, unable to believe them. She had to know if he meant them. She wouldn't, couldn't for someone who had hurt him as she had. She forced herself to meet his eyes, equal parts enthralled and guilty. "You loved me after everything that happened over the last day?"

The week had been fine before that, to the point that Esmera had believed Tauram when he said he loved her, seen the reason for it in the jokes and laughter, in the quick kisses that became more delicious the longer they lasted. It was the last day that had changed all of that, that had been the unforgiving avalanche that buried everything they had built between them.

"I love you after everything that happened over the last week." Tauram stroked Esmera's chin as he said the same words that had been on her mind even though she knew he couldn't read it.

She stared at him in wonder that that one nasty day had in fact not caused them to crumble. All she had ever known before was a life that compounded every negative event that occurred. Never any softness or kindness. Never mercy. Never forgiveness.

"And because I love you" —Tauram took a soft breath— "I took the heartstone and used it to save your life."

Esmera looked down at where it glowed in her skin, still disbelieving that it was what he said, but when she ran a fingernail along its warm edge, it was unmistakable. "But this means you can't use the power of the heartstone that you're entitled to as the ruler."

Esmera knew what Stephan would've chosen had he been forced to decide between her and his power. She knew what every boyfriend, friend and foster parent of hers would've chosen, but like Yandriya, Tauram had chosen her.

And it gave her a warm fuzziness to think that she was loved, even if many of those people were gone. She still had Tauram.

Tauram inclined his head. "Yes, that is what it means."

Esmera's eyes filled with tears of disbelief, so touched was her stony heart by his gesture. "You gave that up for me?"

Tauram pressed his mouth to Esmera's forehead. "So, now will you believe that I love you?" His lips shaped his words against her skin, sending lovely little shivers through her.

Esmera sighed as the pleasantness ebbed and flowed through her. Then she blinked up at him, taking her time to think of a reply for Tauram, but she never got to that because he kissed her, taking away the breath that he had given her. Before she realised what she was doing, she was wrapping every part of herself around every inch of him that was available.

And still she didn't feel close enough, so she eased the covers off herself, banishing the barrier between their bodies.

Tauram surprised her, running his fingers over her collarbones instead of covering her up again. "I also owe you an apology." He kissed her jaw before lowering his face and resting it in the crook of her neck. "I'm sorry I said you fly off the handle about everything." He shook his head, withdrawing from Esmera to look her in the eye, braver in his apology than she could ever be. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry about the whole letter affair. I don't have proof that I wasn't the one who opened it, but I understand that it—"

Esmera closed her arms around his slim, lean shoulders. "Your word is enough. It should've been enough from the beginning." Her mouth found his again without her deciding to go looking for it, but she was glad she had.

"Oh, Esmera." Tauram stroked her hair, his eyes gleaming with adoration despite how messy she was sure it was, how unkempt she must look in general. "I don't know what I would've done if I didn't manage to save you."
His eyes went distant, tearful, a window to his inner fragility in that moment. Or maybe that was just Esmera's imagination, just her projecting her feelings onto him because she so desperately wanted not to be alone in them.

"Tauram, is Belaren still...?" Again, that awful word caught in Esmera's throat. She would've thought that it would become easier to say because of how many times she had faced it, how many times it had taken people she didn't know she loved from her, but it didn't.

It felt like it never would, like death would always be a thing to fear, a thing that fear gave power to.

Esmera knew the answer to her question from the way Tauram's face contorted, but she still hoped with every cell in her newly-resurrected body that she was wrong.

"Yes, Esmera." Tauram let out a shaky breath, squeezing his eyes closed. His mouth trembled before he stiffened it, steadying it. "Belaren is well and truly and irrevocably gone."

Again tears rose to take the place of the words Esmera wanted to speak. Now she was the one pulling Tauram to her as squeezed his eyes closed in silent agony Esmera could hear loudly because she shared it.

She couldn't imagine going into the kitchen in the cottage and not seeing Belaren there, whipping something for dinner because he was the only one who remembered that Esmera and Tauram had to eat. She couldn't even imagine leaving Tauram's company without him making some snide comment about them, comments that had annoyed her once but that she would now welcome if it would mean they would get to see their friend again.

Esmera couldn't imagine a life without Belaren, and she couldn't imagine how much worse that feeling must be for Tauram, who had known him for years, who'd had no one but him for the decade he had spent in Arkōsāra.

"You couldn't have saved him," she said, knowing Tauram well enough to know that that was what was going through his mind, that addressing it was the only way to console him.

"I know." He inhaled deeply, slowly, the sound heavy with pain. "But I keep taking myself back to the moment when it happened and feeling like I should've acted quicker."

Esmera shook her head, cradling his cheek as she touched her mouth to his. "The only way to save him was the heartstone, and Ruagu still had it in his possession."

The soon to be king squeezed his eyes closed. "I should've taken it from him then. I could've saved Belaren and stopped Ruagu from killing you after that."

What, did Tauram want to die in his quest to retrieve it from the traitorous tyrant? It was only by entertaining his advanced that Esmera had barely escaped with her life. Tauram would've stood no chance.

The odds had been stacked against them from the start, from the time Ghallia chose Ruagu over Tauram. This had always felt like a mission where one person was going to die. They were lucky that the two of them had survived, but that couldn't take away the pain of losing their comrade, not for Tauram, and not for Esmera.

She shook her head again, as hard as it was to talk herself and Tauram out of their downward spiral. "We did our best, even though I know we'll always come up with ways we could've done better when we look back on it." She pulled him closer to her as if her touch could ease his pain, ease away the agony of losing yet another person who he loved.

Tauram said nothing, merely continued to cry against Esmera while she ran her fingers through his hair, letting her own tears drip down her cheeks. They might've descended further into the depths of their grief, united in their pain, if there wasn't a knock on the door that drew both their teary gazes to it.