Luntok’s voice, softer than rustling palm leaves, jolted Laya back to reality. She looked up with a gasp. He was standing on the balcony, his profile silhouetted against the full moon. When he stepped out of the shadows, he gazed at her, his smooth face fixed in a somber expression.

“Luntok,” Laya cried. She forgot about the world beyond her bedroom when she ran to him. Every inch of her body sang in delight. Luntok had come to the palace. He hadn’t abandoned her.

“I’m here,” he whispered, gathering her in his arms. The blood and swelling were gone, flushed away by the healer’s touch. Luntok stood before her, as strong as he’d been before his fight against Bulan the previous evening.

Laya pulled back to cup his face, her brow knitted in concern. “When you didn’t answer, I thought you were deathly hurt. Or perhaps . . .” She trailed off, swallowing hard. “Perhaps you didn’t want to see me again.”

Luntok caught her hand and held it to his cheek. “I would die if I couldn’t see you. I’d throw myself off the summit of Mount Matabuaya. I’d pitch myself into the Untulu Sea,” he said, and pressed his lips into the tender flesh of her palm.

“A poet’s words.” Her tone was playful, but her eyes were not. Luntok was there. She threaded her long, slender fingers between his. She thought back to her mother’s warning, and her heart grew heavy. No, Laya wouldn’t let Luntok go⁠—not yet.

“I meant them,” Luntok said. His gaze scalded her skin, a flame that blazed hotter the longer he looked at her. Laya remembered what she had written in her last letter; that was what she’d promised him.

Without hesitation, she wrapped her arms around his neck, reeling him closer. “You must be careful with your words, poet,” she whispered in his ear. “My heart cannot bear the beauty of them, and I have already fallen so deeply in love.”

“Love,” he repeated, his voice strained, as if the word were fragile porcelain that would fracture the moment he uttered it.

Laya nodded. “I love you, Luntok,” she said as her heart pounded in her chest.

With trembling hands, he drew her closer by the waist. Laya tilted her mouth up to meet his and melted into their kiss. Her heart soared. Her heart ached. She ran her hands up the tattooed skin on his arms, tugging him toward her, desperate to eliminate every last inch of space between them.

As she deepened the kiss, her fingers trailed down the front of his vest, tracing the soft, scarlet threads. Farther they traveled, down his torso and abdomen, before coming to rest atop the hardening tent at the inseam of his trousers.

Luntok jerked back. “Don’t say this is love, Laya,” he said, shaking his head. “Not unless you truly mean it.”