(Aww.)

"...It's getting late," she sighs. "And I do want to get up in time to see the sunrise in the morning."

"Time to go?"

"Yeah, I think so."

He hugs her.

"It was nice meeting you," he says to everyone else.

Elcisse gives her one last hug good-bye.

"I love you, Liri."

"I love you too, Sissy, so much."

She has similar exchanges with her brother and father. Then she sighs and steps away.

He takes her hand and walks with her back to the east gardens.

She hugs his arm.

When they get there, he hugs her and makes a portal and steps through, back to the comfy sitting room. The dirt on his coat shimmers and vanishes.

"Thank you."

He pets her hair. "Where do you want to sleep? —by which I mean: I can make you a bedroom, do you care what goes in it?"

"Um, a bed? Clothes for tomorrow, I suppose..."

"Okay."

The next door over from the one that leads to his bedroom is a balcony. Solekaran walks over to it. Stone ripples and shifts, stretching outward; plants root in the expanding floor and grow. When he's finished, a couple of minutes later, she has her own fully furnished bedroom, with a balcony and a wardrobe and a (gorgeous, cozy) bed.

"Thank you!'

He smiles. "You're welcome. Goodnight."

"Goodnight." And she goes into her bedroom and changes into nightwear and snuggles down into her cozy bed and sleeps.

If he was a very different person, he'd have freed her.

But - he's not. He is Emperor Solekaran, rapist, torturer, force of nature. He killed his own father when he was sixteen years old. And he will not give up what's his.

He goes to sleep. He doesn't actually need to sleep all that much; he wakes up after four hours, and makes the arrangements for her family to receive an obnoxious amount of money and a visit from the most powerful healer in Skygarden. Then he curls up on the comfy couch in his sitting room and waits for Lyrame to wake up.

When she wakes it's still dark out. Good, she hasn't missed any sunrise. She dresses in the something from the not-crazy-fancy dress section of the wardrobe and goes out into the sitting room.

The Emperor is curled up on the couch. He smiles at her.

"Good morning."

"Good morning. Want to go to the east gardens?"

"Yes!"

He stands up and hugs her and kisses her forehead and makes a portal.