Dex turned her, lifted her, and sat on the stone ledge beneath the window with her on his lap.
Her legs folded across his thighs, her face pressing into his neck, and his arms locked around her the way they always did, with the specific pressure that said: I have you and I am keeping you and the rest of the world can wait.
His thumb found the tears on her cheek. He wiped them with a gentleness that made more come, because the tenderness of the gesture was so at odds with the man who commanded armies and rode dragons that the contrast cracked something in her chest every single time.
The grief came through the matebond. Not just grief. Guilt. Layers of it, dense and complicated, pouring into him like a tide that carried debris from multiple storms. He felt the necklace in it. He felt the trial. He felt Guinevere's apology and the ugly truth about Agnes and the weight of a friendship she was forbidden from honoring.
