“Because it’s not ‘princess-like’?”
I stared at him, cheeks flushing again. “Perhaps. I always had tutors for music, diplomacy, and lineage. No one ever thought of throwing me into a river.”
He grunted. “Might’ve done you some good.”
While saying, “Not all of us were raised by wolves,” I playfully glared at him.
“Not wolves,” he said. “Worse.”
He didn’t elaborate any further.
I rubbed my hands together and glanced down. A strange warmth pulsed in my palm.
I opened my hand.
There, glowing faintly against my skin, was a single ember, no larger than a spark from the fire. It flickered once. Then faded.
But it didn’t burn.
It had felt like a single,reverberating heartbeat, slow and profound, stretching out of time.
I closed my fingers over the spot and said nothing.
At breakfast, Jasira gave me a long, sly look over her steaming tea.
“You’re blushing like a girl who got wrapped in a hero’s cloak and didn’t hate it,” she said, voice low and teasing. “What did he do—whisper something noble while fixing your buttons?”
A sudden heat crept up my neck, stealing my breath and making my face feel strangely tight. Fingers trembled, struggling to maintain a grip on my cup, rattling the delicate ceramic against the plate. “I didn’t—he didn’t—it wasn’t like that.”
She laughed and leaned in. “Wyn, you’re allowed to want.” Her voice was low and gentle. “You’ve lived your whole life being what others needed. Let yourself desire something that seems like it belongs to you.”
Hesitation washed over me, holding me captive. Guilt, raw and bitter, climbed into my throat, a slow, suffocating burn that mimicked my own pulse.
“It…feels like something I shouldn’t want. I’m promised to someone else. I shouldn’t be thinking about anyone else, much less feeling…”
“You’re only human,” Jasira advised. “You’re not betraying a duty by feeling it, Wyn. And you have done nothing wrong.”
I nodded, eyes low. “It still feels like I’m breaking something.”
Jasira’s teasing smile softened, melting into something so tender it made my throat tighten. “It’s not wrong to want something gentle. Something that looks at you like you’re worth protecting.”
I looked down. My eyes fell to the sprig in my palm. “Do you ever feel that way?”
Jasira was quiet for a moment, then her voice dropped slightly. “Gideon sometimes. He makes everything loud, but when he’s kind, it’s like the world listens. It surprises me. And I think that’s why I noticed it.”
Our shared silence spoke louder than words.
I glanced at her then, and for a heartbeat I forgot we were nearly the same age. She laughed like we were still girls, but her eyes…her eyes always seemed older than mine.
I looked at her. She looked at me.
And then we bothchokedon silent laughter, breathless and giddy, like children with a secret too big to hold.
The sound bubbled up between us, cutting through the tension of the day like sunlight through mist.
The soundless mirth frothed between us, cleaving the day's tension like a sunbeam cleaves through morning mist.
That afternoon, as we moved deeper into Wildervale, the air shifted. The windshifted, sighing through the branches, but a strange undercurrent hummed within it.
