“I was a princess the entire time, Kiran. Every time you kissed me, held me, made me run until I wanted to die,” she continued, trying to lighten the suddenly heavy mood. But there was no changing the way the air had grown thick and charged between them. They had been apart so long, and now every biological instinct they had was driving them together. Perhaps a few less biological instincts too. Aurora wrapped her arms tight around herself, fighting off a shiver. “I have the same lips. The same body. I am the same person.”

“And what would your mother say if she knew you kissed someone like me?”

“Last I checked, we left my mother fairly cozy with your mentor, who is a hunter also.”

“You know that is not the same. He is a lord, apparently.”

Aurora was not quite through processing that herself. She had gleaned during their travels that Duke had been a sailor in his past. But for him to be the sailor, the one on whose story she was raised and inspired and still in some ways modeled her life after? She was not sure how she felt about that. She had spent so much of her youth imagining the true end to Finneus Wolfram’s story—waffling between nihilistic visions of a sunken ship somewhere at the bottom of the sea and fantasies of a paradise island where life was simpler and safer and so different from here. Now she knew the end of the story, and it was nothing like she could have ever imagined.

But she was not thinking about that now; she was focused on Kiran. “Do you hold his title against him even after all your years together? Will you leave his crew? Set off on your own? Will you leave him behind the way you threatened to leave me?”

Kiran huffed out a breath and sat down near the fire. “If we are going to have this conversation, we might as well get warm while we do it.” He began pulling off his boots, and Aurora inched closer, doing the same with her own shoes.

“Well?” she asked, when both their feet were bare and pushed toward the crackling fire. “Will you run from Duke like you ran from me?”

“I did not run from you.”

Aurora raised a challenging eyebrow. “Did you not? I seem to remember a door slamming and me being left alone with my heart practically in my hands.”

“I am here now, aren’t I?”

“You are. Though I have no idea why. You told me you did not belong, did not meet me when I asked you to, then showed up as part of the rebellion anyway. Your actions have not exactly been clear.”

Kiran huffed, his face pulling into a grimace. “I cannot say my feelings have always been clear either.”