“I know,” he said.
Neither of us moved.
But he didn’t pull away.
And I didn’t want him to.
…
Eventually, we walked back slowly.
The path looked different now. The air was still thick with steam and sulfur, but the sharpness had dulled, or maybe it was me. Something had shifted in the way I held my weight.
Erindor walked beside me in silence, his hand brushing mine once before slipping away again. He didn’t offer any words or explain what had happened.
He didn’t need to.
Something had bloomed between us. Not a confession, not a promise, but the space where both of us could one day live.
The camp came into view beyond the slope, a dim cluster of figures outlined by firelight. Gideon was poking the cookpot, muttering about cinder-tinted soup. Jasira sat wrapped in her cloak with Bran curled at her feet. Alaric lay sprawled on his back with his lute cradled against his chest, fast asleep, a smear of drool across one cheek.
No one noticed our return, not really, though Jasira glanced up once, eyes flicking between us and then narrowing with a knowing look. She said nothing as she smiled faintly and returned to her tea.
I settled near the fire, drawing my cloak tight around my shoulders. My palm still tingled faintly where the fire had kissed my skin. I opened my hand beneath the shadow of my cloak, half-expecting to see it again.
But nothing. Only skin and the glowing memory of what was just there.
Across the fire, Erindor sat a little apart. Not distant. Not watching the trees for danger.
Watching me.
Like I was something he didn’t yet understand but wanted to.
He didn’t look away.
And neither did I.
Something shifted in his expression, and then his gaze dropped for a breath. His hand drifted to his pocket, fingers brushing against it like a reflex. A slow, unconscious movement.
He let his palm linger there for a moment, then curled it back into his lap as if it had meant nothing.
But it had.
Whatever he cupped to his chest remained hidden, yet his touch, delivered with an unsettling gaze fixed on mine.
And for reasons I couldn’t explain, it left me momentarily breathless.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Wynessa
“Tell me again why we’re marching through a mountain that smells like boiled eggs and poor decisions?” Gideon muttered, swiping a sleeve across his brow. A fresh hiss of steam burst from a crack in the stone beside him, curling around his legs like a hungry ghost.
“Because it’s faster,” Alaric answered, voice flat. “And every day we spend out here is another day Kaelen tightens his grip on the coast.”
“And because you voted for this route,” Jasira added sweetly, her curls damp from the mist. “You said, and I quote, ‘How bad can a little heat be?’”
“Lies,” Gideon said. “Slander. I never say things that get me killed.”
