The others slept beneath the vines and stars, Kael snoring softly, Sylis curled against the stone with his dagger still in hand. But Lian couldn't sleep.
Aure wasn't beside the fire.
He found him at the springs, mist curling over the warm, moonlit water. He stood waist-deep, head tilted back, hair like ink and silver cascading down his back, arms stretched to the sky as if catching starlight in his palms.
For a moment, Lian only watched.
And then Aure turned his eyes gleaming, not with magic, but invitation.
"I couldn't sleep," he said, voice hushed. "The silence here isn't empty. It's full… of things I used to be."
Lian stepped forward slowly, shedding his boots, his cloak, the heavy layers of a warrior. He moved as if entering a dream. The water embraced him with a gentle warmth.
Their fingers met beneath the surface first.
Aure pulled him closer until their chests brushed, until every breath trembled between them. "Why does this feel like we've done it before?" Aure asked.
"Because we have," Lian whispered, brushing a strand of wet hair from his cheek. "In a time forgotten. Beneath other moons."
Aure reached up, touched the mark on Lian's chest with slow reverence. It flared gold beneath his fingers. "Then kiss me like it's the last time. Or the first."
Lian did.
And the world melted.
It wasn't desperate, it was slow, molten. A communion of breath and memory. They moved in the water like the wind moved through trees fluid, ancient, inevitable.
Their foreheads touched. Aure's voice was a tremble. "When I lost everything… I think this is what I missed the most. You. This."
"You never lost me," Lian said, kissing his brow, his throat, the hollow of his collarbone. "I waited through lifetimes to find you."
Their lips met again, deeper now, water rippling around them.
Not a single word was needed anymore. They spoke in touches, in gasps, in the shiver of soul against soul. The bond ignited in gold and sapphire light, pulsing from their chests into the night like a heartbeat too sacred for language.
When it ended, they stayed there entwined, breathless, hands still clutching as if the world might vanish again.
Aure murmured into Lian's shoulder, "Don't let me forget this time."
"I won't," Lian vowed. "Even if the stars burn out."
And far above, the moons blinked like they, too, remembered the old vow.