She sat alone on a low stone near the fire, her legs tucked beneath her, sketchbook open. Her fingers moved with the practiced ease of someone who had done this a thousand times. She was tracing the carvings on the walls—the old spirals, rivers, beasts made of wind and flames. Her brows furrowed in concentration. A smudge of charcoal streaked her face.
I didn’t think. I crossed the space between us.
“Hold still,” I said.
Her head snapped up, eyes widening in a sudden jolt of surprise.
I crouched beside her and brushed the smudge gently from her cheek with my thumb. The fire painted her skin with a rosy, warm hue. She stilled under my touch.
“Th-thank you,” she murmured.
Her voice was barely there.
I sat down beside her, forcing my attention away from the ache in my chest. Her head lowered again, and she returned to her drawing. For a moment, we sat in silence, warm and still. I didn’t know what to say. So, I said nothing at all.
I looked up and caught Alaric by the fire, watching me with a furrow between his brows that didn’t ease. He wasn’t subtle. He never was. But the way his gaze lingered when I brushed the mark from Wyn’s cheek made my spine stiffen.
Jasira didn’t miss it either. As I stepped back from Wyn and sat beside her, Jasira’s eyes caught mine across the fire. Her silence was punctuated only by the slow, deliberate archof one eyebrow, a gesture that spoke volumes and seemed to peel back my own unspoken thoughts. Then she looked at Wyn with something like concern, or curiosity, or maybe a warning. I couldn’t be sure. Nonetheless, it made my chest tighten.
Then Wyn passed the page to me.
Before I could speak, she gestured to the carvings on the wall.
“That symbol there,” she whispered, pointing, “is a sun spiral.” It’s old—pre-God wars, probably. I think it means rebirth, or maybe convergence. This one with the teeth might be a warning symbol. Some texts suggest people used them in marking boundaries between sacred and forbidden spaces.
I blinked. “How do you know all this?”
She flushed. “I spent a lot of time in the castle library. Reading. Mostly when I didn’t want to be seen. Books don’t care if you’re too quiet or too much of something else.”
I didn’t know what to say. So, I looked back down at the page.
I stared at it longer than I should have. Her lines were clean, careful. The carvings had come to life under her hand.
“This is incredible. You’re not only clever,” I said, not looking at her. “You notice things others don’t.”
She didn’t answer immediately. Her fingers worried at the stitching of her dress like she needed somewhere to put the nervous energy.
“I just pay attention,” she said at last.
“That’s rarer than you think, Princess.”
The corners of her lips softened into a slow, gentle curve that reached her eyes, crinkling them at the edges. It wasn’t the polite smile she wore in court, or the brave one she showed her guards. It was unguarded. Fragile. And for the first time, I wanted to be the reason she smiled again.
I held out her journal for her to take.
She extended her hand, and our fingers touched. Just barely. A brush of skin, warm and fleeting, but enough to make my pulsestumble. She hesitated a heartbeat too long before taking it, as if the space between us wasn’t so easily bridged.
“Thank you,” she murmured, her eyes not quite meeting mine. But I saw the faint flush along her throat, the quickening of her breath.
I could’ve stayed there longer. Watching her. Letting the firelight paint her shoulders in gold and shadow, tracing every line of her face until I could memorize it. Letting myself imagine what it would be like if duty didn’t bind my hands.
The ache in my chest pulled tighter, dangerous.
“You should rest,” I said finally, though my voice was lower, rougher than I intended.
She glanced sideways. “I’m afraid I’ll miss something.”
“You won’t,” I said. “Not while I’m breathing.”
