Outside, a rabble of Ranger voices rises from the enclave courtyard. I glance that way—River must be waiting. I turn to go.
Skeela steps a hand onto my arm. “We’ll need you,” she says.
I nod again, the air in my lungs flaring with purpose. Darkness grips us both—city and past and fear—but for once I feel like belonging to something more than battle.
I walk back, silent, toward River.
The city fears me. But for the first time, I fear leaving her.
The shadowsin our quarters stretch long by the flicker of moonlight slipping through cracked stone. Silk drapes catch pale patterns, dust motes trembling like stars burned free from the sky. It smells of cooling embers, sweat, and something oak and unfinished from the wood furnishings—comfort pressed into ruin.
We stand in the center of the room—River on one side, I on the other, blood and regret thick between us.
I’ve just walked us back from diplomatic duty. I still taste the city’s tremor, its cautious breathing, its need for us both. But in this room… there’s tension.
“You’re burning yourself out,” I say, voice low, rough, wound tight around words. “You’re wasting yourself on politics.”
She stares at me—eyes rimmed with exhaustion and resolve. “We need me,” she whispers. “More than ever.”
I grind my teeth. “I need you alive.”
She huffs a laugh, sad as an echo in a cave. “Not better. Just necessary.”
“A cut that won’t heal is a scar that stays,” I growl. “You’re not like them. You’re better.”
Her eyes flash hurt. “I’m not better,” she snaps. “I’m just trying to fix what I helped break.”
Silence blooms, heavy and brimming with every battle we’ve fought together.
The fire’s glow softens. I don’t move.
Then she turns, backs toward me.
I want to reach for her. I can’t make the damage undo itself, but I can keep her alive. She’s still drawing air. Still fighting.
So we climb into bed, each facing away. Mistakes and regrets pressed against cold linen, bodies rigid in nightly exhaustion.
But our hands? They find each other. Under corners of cloth, fingertips curl against skin like roots seeking water.
I feel her pulse—steady, stubborn, her heartbeat echoing mine. It’s a prayer. A promise.
Even when we’re hurt, bent, crucified by duty, we’re here. Tethered by breath and shadows and something soft beyond vows.
We fall into silence. Into wounds. Into each other.
And though words fail us, this touch says everything.
Goodnight, love. I’m still here.
23
RIVER
Iwake before dawn, the hush of our enclave broken only by my breath and the faint rumble of the city still dreaming. The air is cool—carry the scent of moss, ember ash, and something faintly sweet, like new blossoms daring themselves through concrete cracks. My muscles coil, stiff from yesterday’s confrontation, but I push the ache aside. There is something I must do before the dawn claims the night.
I slip out of the bed and pull on my cloak. Kragna shifts beside me, eyes closed but brow taut with memory or worry—I can’t tell. I don’t stop to think. Instead, I walk barefoot down familiar corridors, each step an echo through the reconstructed halls of diplomacy.
Outside, moonlight reveals rows of freshly turned earth, unmarked stones rising from the soil in neat, solemn lines. This is the mass grave beneath the ridge—the place where my scouts, my friends, were laid to rest. I kneel at the edge, feeling the cold seep into my bones.
