This evening found Ragnar alone in one of the quieter parts of the garden, the same one he usually snuck off to as a child.

The space was tucked away from the busier sections of the grounds, sheltered by stone alcove and flowering vines that had begun creeping back to life with the arrival of spring. The air was mild, carrying the scent of damp earth and blooming flowers.

Morana arrived some time later. Not because she had followed him, but because this was one of the paths she often walked in the evenings whenever she was still in the palace. It was a beautiful sight to behold even in winter and she had indulged herself by returning here again and again.

She spotted him immediately.

For a brief moment, she hesitated. An old fear stirred inside her, the lingering worry that her presence might still drive him away, that she might look up and find him already leaving simply because she had arrived.

The thought lingered only for a heartbeat before she firmly pushed it aside.

Then she continued forward.

She perched on a spot a reasonable distance away and sat down, her gaze drifting across the rest of the gardens. The flowers were in full bloom now, bright splashes of color spread across the palace grounds.

"They’re beautiful this time of year," she said as she stared at a cluster of flowers.

Ragnar followed her gaze. "They are."

Morana smiled faintly.

"Your child will be born in early autumn." She muttered without looking back at him. "I keep finding myself wondering what he’ll be like. Whether he’ll have Circe’s features or yours."

Ragnar’s expression softened. "He’ll hopefully take after Circe."

"I can already picture him running through there," Morana said. "He might be a little ball of chaos."

That earned a soft huff of amusement from Ragnar.

"If he turns out to be like I saw as a child, then it’s going to be a certainty, not a possibility." The smile lingering on his face came easily now, in a way it never once had before.

Then Morana did something that drew Ragnar’s attention completely.

One hand rested loosely in her lap and in the other, she was turning a small flame between her fingers.

The fire rolled from one fingertip to the next in a slow, continuous motion, the way someone else might absentmindedly flip a coin across their knuckles.

She wasn’t even looking at it. The flame shifted and reshaped itself as it moved, stretching and folding around her fingers without ever going out. It never spread beyond her control and never left so much as a mark on her skin.

It was a small, private habit. The sort of thing a person developed after years of living with an ability until it became second nature to use it.

Ragnar found himself watching her hand and he couldn’t look away.

There was something strangely hypnotic about it. The fire moved too smoothly, too responsively, to be as effortless as it appeared.

He knew enough about fire magic by now to understand that what looked casual almost certainly was not. The amount of continuous control required to keep the flame rolling between her fingers without letting it gutter, spread, or burn her was significant.

She made it look as natural as breathing.

Morana eventually noticed him staring.

Her eyes followed his gaze downward to the flame.

Then she looked back at him and a slow smile spread across her face.

Without warning, she closed her fingers and let the flame disappear.

Then she tilted her head toward him. "Try it."

The shift in Ragnar’s expression was immediate.

It wasn’t irritation that flashed across his face or even the guarded, closed-off look he used to give her.

It was something closer to alarm.

His gaze dropped to the place where the flame had been, then to his own hand. A second later, he shook his head.

Morana studied his face. She immediately recognized that this was more than simple reluctance. Fear was perhaps too strong a word for it, but not by much.

"Is something wrong?" She could have left the subject alone. They had only recently reached a place where speaking to one another felt natural, and she had no desire to push him toward a boundary he was not ready to cross.

But she asked anyway and just as she did, a memory surfaced unexpectedly.

On the day Circe confronted her, Morana noticed the burn marks scattered across her arms. At the time, she had seen them and wondered about them but chose not to probe further.

Ragnar remained silent for so long that she thought he might deflect the question entirely.

Instead, he exhaled slowly before answering. "It happened on an ordinary morning. Casilo and I were sparring while Circe was sitting nearby watching us. I don’t even remember what triggered it. I brought my sword around in a wide arc, and a large burst of fire came with it and Circe was standing in its path."

He said and there was a distant look in his eyes as he recalled that awful day. "I was already wary of this strange ability before that. I could never control it the way I controlled the shadows. My shadows listened and I always felt in control when I used it. But it was the opposite with fire. It was unpredictable and it made me feel out of control. It always came too large, too fast. I never trusted where it would go. After that morning, I stopped trying to use it. I didn’t want to touch something that had hurt her."

When he finished, he glanced at her and found her looking deep in thought.

The evening breeze stirred the flowering vines climbing a nearby wall.

Somewhere beyond the alcove, distant voices drifted across the palace grounds.

Morana glanced down at her hands for a moment before finally shaking herself from her thoughts and returning her attention to Ragnar.

She took a moment to choose her words carefully, so as not to worsen what he was already feeling.