Growling, The Other nudges Elluin so hard that even Allume stirsbefore binding into a tighter knot, giving her Little One no choice but to tilt back.
The Other huffs on Elluin’s face until she opens her eyes and looks up. The moment their gazes meet, Elluin’s face crumbles.
“My brother. He—” She squeezes her lids shut, releasing twin tears as she holds her breath, like she’s trying to suffocate the sadness.
Again, The Other nudges her.
When Elluin opens her eyes again, there’s anger in there, fueled with a blue flame of hurt. “He told me he wished I left him there to die,” she bites out past trembling lips. “He never talks anymore—notoncesince we got back from Netheryn—andthoseare the words he chose?”
It’s only when Allume makes a sharp keening sound that The Other realizes her young is awake. Probably feeling the same hurt, given she never sees her bonded; so broken he can’t move from his nest in the big black spiky home where Elluin’s blood resides.
Times like this, The Other wishes she spoke the same tune as her Precious Little One. If she did, she’d tell her what she knows: that her elder blood, broken as he is, won’t always feel this way.
He will know happiness again.
The Other tightens her tail around both Elluin and Allume. Cradled close, they tuck together like two halves of a small moon as The Other rumbles through her breaths—a lulling sound that eventually has its desired effect, pulling both youngs into a quiet slumber.
But The Other doesn’t sleep. Not with her entire world bundled beneath the vast shield of her wing, the weight of their sadness heavy on her chest. Instead, she looks out on the dark sky lit by her nesting brethren; those who have found their eternal sleeping spot above it all.
Not for the first time, she considers that silver ribbon that splashed against her all those rises ago. Both a bounty and a curse to be bonded with the ebb and flow of a fate that flies in one direction, never slowing. Especially in moments like this, when she wishes time would still.
Even weighted by the sadness of her loved ones, being able to comfort them is a treasured gift. Because these opportunities are precious few, and they won’t always fit together as they do right now. Nor will they always have each other.
But they do havethismoment.
Thisnow.
And so The Other binds tight, knowing this protective ache is the penance of love, savoring each beat that drips by too fast.
“When did you last sleep?” Pyrok asks from somewhere in the kitchen, clunking through the cutlery.
I recline against the backrest and rub my scratchy eyes. “You know I need less than most.”
“Still. I’d pay good gold to see—”
“I’m not busting the upstairs door down to sleep in a room where I’m obviously not welcome or else Raeve wouldn’t have locked me out.”
Something thuds on the table before me.
I open my eyes to see a bowl of stew and a thick flat of dahpa bread. Inhale the robust scent of colk meat and southern seasonings.
Huh.
“Thank you …” My gut cramps with ravenous anticipation as I slouch forward, grip the spoon, and scoop the gravy. “You make this?”
“Boredom comes at a cost,” Pyrok mutters, then flops on the seater, using his arm as a pillow. Flicking the lid on his weald, he whispers a ball of flame loose and tosses it high. “It probably tastes like ass, so don’t get your hopes up.”
I push a scoop into my mouth, punched with so much hearty flavor my entire tongue tingles, repressing a groan as the shred of meat falls apart with the softest chew.
“You couldn’t be more wrong. This is delicious.”
“Probably a fluke.”
I pause with another spoonful halfway to my mouth as he crushes the ball of flame, snags a bottle off the floor, and draws a deep glug. “You want to talk about what’s bothering you?”
“Nope,” he says, popping thep.
“Has it got to do with—”
