Had they not exchanged names before?
It feels impossible to consider. He had found her in the first cresting wave of her grief. He had been the harbinger of the mourning to come. He had seen her so cleanly that her only respond had been to run, and run, and run, until there was nothing around her and no one to see the screams that cut through the silence. The ugly, angry way that she had raged at the death of her father and the absence of another.
He had seen the beginning of that, and now the aftermath.
And yet he didn’t know her name?
Shock ripples from her, followed by shyness, and other feelings she cannot name but that spear for him regardless. Her lips tip upward in the corner and she holds onto his name, warmth blossoming in her chest as he shares it. “Selaphiel,” she repeats, marveling at the intimacy of being able to name him. Of having something of him to hold onto as they walk together, side by side and yet held apart.
“I like that,” she admits, feeling a curl in her belly, and when he asks for hers, she smiles yet again. “My name is Keyna,” her voice is still quiet, and she wonders why sharing this feels like a secret. She has never had any reason to withhold her name before, and she certainly doesn’t feel like it’s something worth hiding now, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling like it’s a gift that she is giving him.
Suddenly, she stops, drawing herself up and looking at him more fully.
“Will you promise me something,” she pauses before adding, “Selaphiel?”