Seraphina let out a wet, ragged gasp, her small hands maintaining their death grip on his tunic beneath his armor.
She tilted her tear-streaked, snotty face up just enough to look into his glowing violet eyes.
"Y-You're... you're not giving me back?" she choked out, a crystalline snot bubble expanding at her nose.
Kaelus didn't flinch.
With tender, excruciating fatherly care, he reached up with his ungloved thumb and gently wiped the snot and tears from her blotchy face, uncaring of the mess on his own skin.
"I am a monstrous, arrogant fool, Seraphina," Kaelus whispered, his glowing violet eyes burning with an unshakable devotion.
He pressed his forehead directly against hers, his voice vibrating into her soul. "I thought... I believed my fortress was too dark for a creature of your light. I believed I was protecting you by offering the garden."
He tightened his arms around her, holding her as if she were the only anchor preventing him from falling into the dark abyss.
