"This is real," she said, pressing it into his hands. "You're staying. We're getting married. And I'm going to make absolutely certain you never regret it."
Larus took the rose with trembling fingers, cradling it like it was made of spun glass.
He stared at it for a long moment—at the perfect petals, the delicate stem, the dewdrops still clinging to it and catching the light.
Then he looked back up at her, and his smile—broken and tear-stained and radiant and absolutely, utterly 'real'—could have lit the entire empire.
"Thank you," he whispered.
Heena smiled back.
"Don't thank me yet," she said. "You haven't seen the contract negotiations. Or met my other five husbands sober. Or dealt with the Imperial Council when they're in a bad mood."
Larus laughed—loud and bright and completely, utterly joyful—and pulled her into another hug, the white rose carefully protected between them.
