All I ever really did was open a window they did not know existed, in a wall they thought was solid, to a sun they could not switch off.

And the light did the rest.

Camila smiled then — a real, bright, radiant smile that reached all the way to her eyes, and behind it, for the first time in two years, there was no shadow of fear at all.

There was no kingdom left to be afraid of.

There was no powerful family that could touch us.

There was only the mountains going gold in the last light, and the smell of cedar and coming rain, and my wife standing on her own two healed legs beside me, unafraid.

Only that.

Only peace.