Davn's voice. From the stable doorway. Completely, immaculately neutral.
November was off him in a second. Standing, brushing dirt from her trousers, pushing her hair back with both hands. Composed. Or performing composed. Her cheeks were scarlet.
Rhaezon lay on the ground for one additional second. Then he stood. Rolled his shoulder. Did not look at Davn. Did not look at November.
Torren stood three feet away, nosing the ground, entirely unbothered by the chaos he had authored. His tail swept a slow, contented arc through the dust.
"No healer needed," Rhaezon said. His voice sounded like someone else's.
November was already walking toward the stable, her stride quick, one hand pressed against the back of her neck where the flush still burned, the other wiping nonexistent dust from her backside where his hand had rested a moment ago.
He watched her go.
She had looked at his lips. He had seen her do it. Not a glance, not an accident — alook, deliberate and lingering, the kind that carries weight. The kind that means something specific.
He did not know what he would have done if Davn had not spoken. His hand remembered the curve of her. His chest remembered her weight. His vision was still amber at the edges and refusing to clear.
He was not sure he wanted to find out what would have happened next.
He was a hundred percent sure that wasn't true.
FOURTEEN
The rain didn't wake her in the middle of the night. She hadn't been sleeping.
November sat in the deep stone window embrasure in the kitchen — a wide-silled alcove cut into the estate's thick outer wall, broad enough to curl into with her knees drawn up and her back against the cool stone — and listened to Aelthar's first rain hit the plateau.
It was a good rain. Heavy and steady, without the theatrical violence of a thunderstorm, just water falling that intended to keep falling for a long time. The estate's dark stone drank it in. The sound traveled through the walls and into the bones of the building, a low continuous exhalation, as though the whole structure had been holding its breath through the dry weeks and could finally let go.
Her tea had gone lukewarm. She wrapped both hands around the mug anyway and pressed her forehead against the window glass. The plateau was black beyond the rain. No stars. No twin sunset. Just darkness and water and the faint silver sheen of wet stone where the kitchen light reached.
Rhaezon was on patrol.
She had not been able to sleep on patrol nights since that first one — since the night he came back with the gash in his shoulder and she found him bleeding in this same kitchen, quiet about it like he'd forgotten there was another option. Every patrol night since, she ended up here. In this window. With tea she didn't drink. Watching the dark for the shape of him coming home.
She was not going to think about that morning.
She was not going to think about the weight of her body on his, or the way his hand had pressed between her shoulder blades, the other on her ass, fingers spread, holding her against him. She was not going to think about the amber bleeding into his eyes or the involuntary extension of his wing toward her, curving in that small protective arc. She was not going to think about the fact that she had looked at his mouth. Deliberately. With intent. That her eyes had traced the shape of his lips and thought about what they would feel like and had been six inches from answering her own question when Davn's voice pulled her back into the world of consequences.
She pressed her forehead harder against the glass.
There she is. That's my girl.
She took a sip of cold tea and closed her eyes.
A sound came from the corridor. Footsteps — hurried, uneven. She straightened and set the mug down.
Vasek appeared in the kitchen doorway. He'd been composed under every circumstance she had witnessed the past three weeks. He was not composed now. His hair was wet from the rain. His shirt was half-tucked. His hands gripped the doorframe.
"Lady Vaethari." His voice was controlled, but the effort of the control was visible. "My wife."
November was already moving, her bare feet hitting the stone floor. "What happened?"
"That cough she's had for months. For the past two days she's had a fever. It broke this afternoon, and I thought — but it's come back worse. Much worse. Her breathing, it's — she needs the healer. Tonight."
November reached for his arm. His skin was cold and damp. "Where's the healer?"
"In town. Twenty minutes by kethral, longer in the rain." He swallowed. Something in his jaw worked. "I can't leave Maren alone. She can't — I'll wait for the Lord. He and Davn are on patrol." He looked at her with a helpless expression on his face at waiting while his wife was burning alive in their cottage.
