The words land somewhere deep. I feel them in my gut, my bones, in places I don’t have names for.
“Xela—”
“Don’t.” She holds up a hand, cutting me off. “Don’t make this into more than it is. I’m not declaring love or loyalty or any of the things that would give the King more leverage. I’m just saying that killing you isn’t on my list anymore. That’s all.”
“That’s enough.”
“Is it?”
It’s more than I’ve had in years. The thought settles in my chest, too large to examine. I release her hand and sit back against the root.
She doesn’t answer right away. The Heartgrove breathes around us—the constant creak of living wood, the subtle shift of roots beneath the bones. I can feel the King’s attention pressing against my awareness, searching for weakness, looking for an opening.
It won’t find one. Not right now.
“Tell me about her.” The words come out before I realize I’m going to speak them. “Your partner. Cyrilla.”
Her head snaps toward me. “Why?”
“Because the King used her against you. Because it found the shape of your grief and tried to turn it into a weapon.” I meet her gaze steadily. “I want to understand what I’m helping you protect.”
“I’m not sure there’s anything left to protect.” But she doesn’t refuse. She draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them, looking at something far past the bones at her feet. “She’s why I came here. And I think—” She stops. “I think I’ve been punishing myself for not being the reason she stayed.”
That’s new. She’s said pieces of Cyrilla before, but not this. Not the guilt beneath the grief. I hear it. “Was she?”
“No.” The word is simple and costs everything.
“I was a mercenary before the binding.” The words come out rough. Unpracticed. “Part of a crew. We traveled the Veillands taking contracts—the kind other people wouldn’t touch. Violence for profit. Death for gold. I was good at it.”
She’s watching me now. Listening.
“There was a woman. Another mercenary. We didn’t love each other—not the way you loved Cyrilla—but we needed each other. Relied on each other. She watched my back; I watched hers. For years, that was enough.” I pause, feeling the oldmemory rise. “She died in the fire I started. The fire that was supposed to burn Briargrave to the ground.”
The fire took them all.
“You’ve mentioned the fire before. But not her.”
“I don’t talk about her. I try not to think about her.” My hands curl into fists.
Silence. The kind of silence that carries meaning. A heaviness I can feel pressing against my ribs.
“What was her name?”
“Seren.” The name feels strange in my mouth. I haven’t spoken it in years. “She had red hair. Green eyes. A scar on her chin from a fight she never told me about.” I shake my head. “I don’t remember much else. The binding takes memories sometimes. Erodes the details until all that’s left is the shape of what you’ve lost.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. She knew what we were. What the job entailed. She would have done the same thing in my position.” I lean back against the root. “That’s what survival costs. You make choices that haunt you. And then you keep making them, because the alternative is letting everything end.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.”
She shifts, moving closer. Not touching—not quite—but near enough that I can feel the warmth of her body, smell her scent beneath the blood and sweat. A floral note underneath.
“We’re quite the pair.” Her voice is soft. Almost gentle. “Two people who lost partners to choices we’d rather not remember. Two people who came to this forest to fight and found each other instead.”
“What did you find?”
